


A girl alone

by LuciaBlack



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Alternate Universe - Harry Potter Setting, Developing Relationship, Eventual Romance, F/M, Falling In Love, First Love, Hogwarts, Hogwarts Era, Hogwarts First Year, Hogwarts Second Year, Hogwarts Sixth Year, Hogwarts Third Year, Love, Love Confessions, Ravenclaw, Romance, School, Yule Ball (Harry Potter)
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-05-03
Updated: 2021-02-21
Packaged: 2021-03-01 20:33:46
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 41
Words: 64,464
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23983129
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LuciaBlack/pseuds/LuciaBlack
Summary: For the last eleven years, Albus Dumbledore has raised a child who is not his. Allowed to roam the corridors of Hogwarts from an early age, Lucia Black is polite, intelligent, and curious. Adored by all, a Ravenclaw despite his expectations, and with the beauty of her parents, she is the first student Dumbledore has ever truly cared for.Yet he knows that one day she - and the world - will discover her parentage and, with it, a fate that she does not deserve. What begins as the heartening story about a reserved, well-mannered girl becomes one of a young woman in turmoil.The only consistency: her infatuation with a certain shuttered potions professor.
Relationships: Severus Snape & Original Character(s), Severus Snape & Original Female Character(s), Severus Snape/Original Character(s), Severus Snape/Original Female Character(s), Snape & original female character
Comments: 140
Kudos: 206





	1. Chapter 1

They met for the first time on Christmas Eve, under the snowfall of the enchanted ceiling in the Great Hall. Professor Snape was eating a still-flaming Christmas pudding while listening with an impassive expression to some joke her grandfather was saying. Lucia, with the poor timekeeping to be expected of an eight year old with a castle to explore, arrived at dinner late and stood at the entrance for four minutes before she was beckoned to the staff table by her grandfather. While Albus Dumbledore was not her grandfather by blood, she had been orphaned at such a young age that she had never known her parents; he and uncle Aberforth had become her only family.  
Lucia Black was well known at Hogwarts. Every Christmas and summer holiday, she would spend hour upon hour searching the corridors for secret rooms or for rare books in the library. Amongst the staff, she was known as the ‘tragic yet charming' young girl, and there were many who sought her only to see if the rumours were true.  
The potions professor, however, had never shown any interest in Dumbledore’s granddaughter. His face was a port from which only the dilapidated expression of sobriety set sail. Today that expression was crossing the waters of his forehead as he sat cutting his Christmas cake with his spoon and taking infrequent sips of brandy. Lucia set herself down beside her grandfather and began to eat with perfect manners. She did not usually dine in the Great Hall, being so much younger than the other students; instead, she would get her dinner from the kitchens and eat it in her bedroom. Once every so often, she would join her grandfather in the hall, where one or other of the staff would ask her about her dinner or about her day, to which she always responded politely. To Professor Snape she had never spoken.  
At the end of the Christmas meal, she pulled her grandfather’s sleeve and peered over the stars at the potions professor. He looked at her, frowned, and nodded politely when Albus introduced them. She had looked immediately back down at her dinner.

To begin with, the enrolling letter was the magic: there was a universe in that parchment envelope which looked like hope and smelled of promise. Lucia insisted that she caught the train like all the other students and, on an amnesia coloured morning, she left her uncle with a kiss on his cheek and boarded the Hogwarts Express. She sat in the first carriage she opened, and greeted those inside with the confidence she had developed from meeting so many of Dumbledore’s renowned acquaintances. They shared a box of Every Flavour Beans while talking about which house they would be sorted into.  
“Not Slytherin though,” Though neither of the girls knew it yet, Abigail would become Lucia's closest friend at Hogwarts.  
“Slytherin is alright.” said an aesthetically gifted boy called Taylor. "At least there are still clever people in Slytherin."  
“Ew, but Snape.” a second year said.  
A firework exploded in the carriage adjacent to them. The surplus sparks butterflied out the window.  
“He’s wretched.” George Weasley had invited himself into the carriage with the intention of having a look at the girl who was the cause of rumours on the train. "You'll never meet such a miserable, bad-tempered and unfair git in your life."  
"I didn't think he was that mean." Lucia held out the box of Every Flavour Beans for the newcomer.  
"You wait until you're in his class and he takes away house points when you sneeze." Fred reached past his brother and took a bean. "What do you think Georgie?" he held out the sweet. "Do I risk it?"  
"Risk it."  
All the faces in the carriage were turned to him. They waited until the grimace, and then laughed loudly enough for the compartment two doors down to look out into the corridor.  
"What flavour?" Taylor asked.  
"Professor Snape flavour." Fred said. "Chip grease."  
Even those from the compartment adjacent laughed, yet Lucia did not. The professor's name had flurried over her and, even when sunnier conversations revolved over them, the residue would not melt.

Then the sorting. The hat concluded swiftly: Ravenclaw like her mother, but she didn't know it then. On her way to her house table, she looked over to her grandfather, whose eyes were closed, and wondered whether he was avoiding her gaze on purpose. She sat down beside a fifth year girl, then turned to him once more; he was now watching the next student’s sorting. Beside him was Snape, and she couldn’t help settling her gaze on his perfunctorily clapping hands. A tap on her shoulder preluded whispered introductions, only interrupted when the next Ravenclaw was announced.  
In the common room after the most food she had ever eaten, Lucia spent the evening talking with her newfound friends. It was to their delight that she related her knowledge of the castle and of her childhood around the greatest of wizards. Yet years of solitude made the experience exhausting, and eventually Lucia left them, went to her trunk and read a book in bed.

It was Snape who, the next morning, caught the girls on the Slytherin table as they charmed her orange juice to explode over her. The whole of Slytherin table laughed as Lucia stood and the sound of flowing juice became audible throughout the hall. Lucia vanquished the liquid and smiled, before quietly exiting the hall while Snape opened the detention hatch.  
“Black.” he called after her. Greasy Bat Demon professor they called him. But, even then, she was drawn to him: he was the darkness around the candle flame, the still point in the turning world. Immediately, she turned and bowed her head.  
“Get changed quickly. If you miss any of my lesson, I won’t hesitate to give you detention also."  
“Yes, sir, I’ll hurry sir.”

Potions became one of her favourite subjects — misery and delight and unlimited emotion bubbling in a cauldron. They said that the professor was ugly and unkind, but the words were mirrors. The way he stirred the cauldron, the angle of his elbow when he added the ingredients — all of it delighted her. She shared none of the nerves of her friends and classmates toward his brittle and unquestionably unfair attitude towards those in his class, including her. He stood behind her three times while she was making her forgetfulness potion, but did not tell her that it was the most impressive he had ever seen a first year brew.

On an evening several weeks later, Lucia enchanted the food on the Slytherin table to turn students that had used the explosion charm on her orange juice to pigs. There was a huge uproar when five students began snorting and squealing on the table. Lucia herself had to look away from fear of laughing too vivaciously, though her friends did not exercise the same caution. Fred and George Weasley were wiping their tears on each other’s sleeves while Snape and Mcgonagall ran to the table and escorted the pigs out of the hall. The raucous on the Gryffindor table was only settled when Dumbledore himself, with an unsettling look at his granddaughter, addressed the hall and asked for quiet.  
The event seemed to unspeakably bolster her already remarkable renown amongst the students. For the rest of the day, pupils were patting her on the back or whispering about her. However that evening, much to the protest of her friends, she went to Flitwick’s office and confessed that she had been the one to enchant the Slytherins. Flitwick, already fond of her and with the secret belief that the other students had warranted it, took away ten house points and was about to let her return to her dormitory when Professor Snape slammed open the door.  
“Ah. There you are, Black.” his voice was perilously slow, “There seems to be a rumour amongst the student body that you, the Headmaster’s granddaughter, were the one to transfigure my Slytherin students.”  
It was at that moment that Lucia first felt deeply unsettled by his eyes. Shame buttered over her cheeks and she looked down.  
“She took the initiative to come and find me, confess, and apologise, Professor Snape. I have already taken her house points.”  
“What, no detention?” his eyebrows were sardonic. “I would have expected that all students, regardless of their circumstances, at least receive a detention.” as he folded his arms, his cloak moved in microwaves. “Surely the transgressor should properly understand the severity of the actions which caused the shame and embarrassment of the Headmaster who has so kindly raised her.”  
There was a brambly silence.  
“Now, I think you’re being a little unfair, Severus.” Flitwick’s mouth had thinned.  
“I’ll do a detention, Professor.” Lucia did not lift her head.  
“Correction: you will do twenty, Miss Black.” Snape said, “And you will come with me to apologise to the students you antagonised. It wouldn’t do at all for the Headmaster’s granddaughter not to be upholding the standards of he who raised her.”  
Lucia quickly followed his forest robes out of the room. At the hospital wing, she looked the Slytherin students in the eye and apologised. Then she followed her potions professor to the dungeons to serve her first detention.


	2. Chapter 2

He had wondered what she would be like. Albus had talked of her incessantly - of her great skill, her haunting beauty and her charming personality. In his admiration of the first two qualities, Snape had to concede Albus had been unquestionably unprejudiced. But charming? No, she was nothing more than a spoiled brat who didn’t understand the kindness, or indeed greatness, of the man who raised her. Confident, arrogant, popular - she was just the type of student he hated. Yes, she had manners - she was polite and did not show off in his lessons. But the way students flocked around her, as if she was some sort of prodigy! He thought it as he looked down at her, scrubbing the cauldrons, her little arms lost in the black precipice. She was sweating and it pleased him. Probably the first time, he thought, that she had ever exerted herself. Good. Good. He looked at the clock; she had missed dinner. Good.

“Do you hate him yet?” Abigail asked, taking a sip of pumpkin juice as she regarded Lucia, who had her head on her book and was ruffling the pages as she breathed.  
“I don't know…” Lucia spoke into the paper. “But he sure hates me.”  
“Don't sweat it Lu, he hates all students who aren’t in his house. You just happened to become a target when you turned those Slytherins into pigs.” Taylor was turning through The Daily Prophet.  
“It worked though,” Elijah’s toast moved up and down as he waved his hand. “They won’t even look at you now for fear that they’ll be snorting truffles again.”  
They all laughed except Lucia.  
“Ahh, I feel terrible about it.” she said, sitting up and finally eating some of her porridge.  
“Don't feel guilty, they deserved it. You never did wash out that pumpkin juice did you?” said Taylor.  
“I had to make a potion for it.”  
“Exactly.” Taylor patted her on the back, then noticed Snape glaring at them. “Oh, Bat Demon at nine o’clock. Giving you the death-glare Lu.”  
“Ahhh, just give me the Nightshade draught now.” Lucia was trying her best not to look at the teacher’s table. “I actually have the recipe in this book…”  
“Don't be ridiculous, Lucia, your detentions are almost over.” Abigail said, “And then you’ll only have to see him in lessons.”  
“You say that Abi, but… oh crap, here he comes.” Taylor looked down at his newspaper.  
Snape’s cloak swelled as he passed them, casting his overcast eyes over them all. He stopped when he was behind Lucia. “Miss Black,” he almost smirked, “You may wish to wear some old clothes to your detention tonight. My fifth years are creating laughter concoctions, which require copious amounts of goat liver. It is, regrettably for you, incredibly pungent and scrub resistant.” And he moved away from them, to the end of the great hall and out of sight.  
“…He definitely hates you.” Elijah muttered.

Although he heard the knock at his door, Snape didn’t look up. “Come in.”  
Lucia moved into the room wearing a ridiculously dowdy outfit. Her hair was up in a tight bun and an anti-fetid charm had made her smell remarkably clinical. Without speaking to the professor, she helped herself to the cauldrons and the cleaning equipment, then began to scrub. There was the sound of the scourer grinding against the silence. He finished his marking and looked at her for the first time. His amusement almost absconded onto his face: Dumbledore’s old robes, three sizes too big, flapping at her elbows.  
“Ensure you scrub right into the corners, Miss Black. Any residue will spoil subsequent potions.” As he spoke, he leaned back in his chair.  
“Yes, sir.”  
Admittedly, he had watched her at the breakfast table that morning. She’d been considerably less lively and, after remarking her flushed face, he almost felt guilty.  
“Your detentions are almost coming to an end,” he said, feeling the buttons under his wrist. “Hopefully you will not behave like that again.”  
“No sir, I’ve learnt my lesson.”  
His chair creaked as he recoiled against the rehearsed answer.  
“With an attitude like that, you will forever bring embarrassment to the family that raised you.”  
Her pacific eyes went to him, and it took him by surprise - he hadn’t expected a look like that from her. There was something unspeakable in it, some deep sea wreckage. And then, almost as quickly, she looked back into the depths of the cauldron. A number of minutes passed. The sound of the scourer, backwards, forwards.  
“That is enough for tonight, Black.” he said, “You can finish the rest tomorrow.”  
Her eyes were on him again, but this time all he could see was the surface.  
“Okay sir.” she said. But as she cleared away the ingredients, he found that he couldn't bring himself to look at her. He heard her wish him a good evening from far away.

For a long time after her last detention, she didn't look at the potions professor, even when he called on her to answer questions - always correctly - in class. Christmas approached in snowflakes. All of Lucia’s free time was spent in the library, researching new spells and potions far above the expected standard for her age. At times, she would read about dark magic in the restricted section, yet she never tried the obscure and sinister magic they showcased.  
In the evenings, she practised making complex potions, sometimes with her friends, sometimes alone. On Saturday afternoons, it became tradition for them to try Lucia’s potions; they tried everything from laughter beverages to size altering potions and, on one occasion, they took a drought of living death and would not have woken up in time for the classes after the weekend if another Ravenclaw had not administered the awakening potion.  
At other times, in the space between long concoctions, Lucia and her friends practised complex magic in empty classrooms, usually having fun with karaoke voice charms, transfiguration charms and even the odd duel. However Lucia, unbeknown to herself, took after her father: she needed time to be alone. Often she would steal away and develop potions that were too complex for her cohort, or practise magic that her friends would never have been able to complete. Despite the desire to have these difficult potions evaluated by her professor, she was too cautious of him to actually bring him any of the draughts she made. But he was there, always, in the way she poured the ingredients, in the way she heated the liquid with an opal coloured flame and in the way she smelled everything before she added it.

It was a December evening. Snape entered the Great Hall, numbed from the cold and flexing his fingers under his overly long sleeves as he passed the students. The ceiling was snowing.  
“Lucia never says anything against him, but if it was me, I’d be putting slugs in his tea.” Taylor and Elijah were playing Wizard Chess. Snape slowed. “After all that git’s done to her, picking on her in lessons and giving her all those detentions, the least she could do is moan about him a bit. But she doesn't say a thing.”  
“Yeah, well, she’s kind isn’t she? Still feels terrible about turning those Slytherin to pigs, even though they clearly deserved it.”  
At that moment, Elijah realised that Snape was standing behind Taylor and gave him a kick. The professor moved on, with the uncomfortable knowledge that the boys were looking after him. Black again. Black again. He seemed to encounter her everywhere. With a sigh, he tipped some pigs in blankets onto his plate.


	3. Chapter 3

Already it was Christmas eve. The school was wonderfully tranquil, lit by only the fluttering bodies of fairy lights. She tested her revitalising potion, bottled an amount for professor Snape, then wrapped it along with the gifts for the other teachers that all utilised their respective schools of magic. She had worried about his the most. It was evident that he disliked her and would probably think that she was trying to win him over with a gift. But she could not give a gift to each teacher except him.  
Once finished, she headed to the parchment corridors, swirling a path through the evening with her shadow. Outside each of the teachers’ rooms, she left the wrapped gifts protected with a non-meddling incantation. Professor Snape’s was the last, and purposefully so. Eventually she reached his door, then checked that the corridor was clear for the last time.  
His door opened and she almost dropped the gift as she recoiled.  
“What…” stretchy syllables, “are you doing in the Slytherin corridors, Black? Outside my office no less?”  
Scornful or curious? She didn’t look up to see. “I’m sorry sir, I only came to…”  
He spotted the paper against her chest.  
“A gift sir, for you, if it wouldn’t trouble you.” but she was too nervous to hold it out for him. Both of them were reflected in firelight geometry on the skin of the suit of armour outside the door.  
“Thank you.” he said, without reaching for it.  
“You’ll accept it sir? You don’t have to, I can take it if I’m troubling you.”  
“It’s not troublesome…” he watched her hair as it fell over her cheek, “…that you got me a Christmas gift.” and then, again, in a chocolate voice: “Thank you.”  
She held it out for him, and when he took it, she felt his isolation temperatured fingers against her palm.  
She made to leave, but his voice stopped her. “A revitalising potion?”  
“Yes sir.” her footsteps were still echoing.  
“A complex potion that my sixth years struggle to brew.” he smelled it. “But one that you have apparently mastered.”  
“I don’t deserve the compliment, sir.” Strands of hair were in her peripheral vision.  
“I will determine whether the compliments I issue were deserved, Black.” He said it in his characteristic drawl.  
She nodded, and he realised he could be delicate. “Such skill must have taken significant study.”  
“I do work hard sir.” she tugged at her sleeves. His were fraying over his palm. “But I also have… a good…” she whispered the last word, “…Teacher.”  
He faltered and, when he spoke again, his voice was less sandy than it had been. “Nevertheless, it’s impressive, Black.”  
“Thank you, Professor. Have a good Christmas.” Lucia bowed once more, then walked much more quickly down the corridor than she had intended. Once she rounded the corner, she checked her robes were correctly in place, then realised with a kind of brain-freeze that she would see him before Christmas. Snape had watched her go, pocketed the potion, then glanced at his door: aching timber, holding its breath against the ocean.

“An adorable child,” Minerva was saying, her fingers spotting her heart. “Adorable. Albus is right to be proud. What did she get you Filius?”  
“An enchanted bird who acts as my alarm. Has the most wonderful voice and always knows what time I want to get up. Superb piece of magic, really.”  
Snape walked past them to his seat at the table. The Ravenclaw students were talking, and once every now and again, Lucia looked up from her book to offer something to the conversation. He watched her do so as he sat down.  
“Did she get you something as well, Severus?”  
He finished his drink. “A revitalising potion.”  
“How adorable.”  
From the table, he could see Lucia leaning close to her book, food falling from her fork. Her concentration made the potions professor smile.

Timetable bricks crumbled away. A few weeks later, Lucia was making a dizzying draught without a partner in class, interested in the way the professor handled the lilies. He lingered behind her potion and gave it a modest passing grade despite the fact it would better many of his fourth years’ attempts. At the end of the lesson, as she handed in the leftover ingredients, she said very quietly:  
“You like lilies don’t you, sir?”  
He glared at her immediately, smoke flickering over his irises.  
“Get out. Ten points from Ravenclaw.”  
Had she not looked immediately at the tabletop, she would have noticed his expression quickly become remorseful.  
“I’m so sorry sir.” and, without looking up, she left the dungeons.


	4. Chapter 4

At the end of class in April he kept her back. She waited with her hand over her bag strap while the other students packed and left. Without looking at her, he finished his unhurried sorting of the remaining ingredients until they were alone.  
“Let me see your leg.”  
“Excuse me sir?”  
“Your leg, Black, the one you’ve been limping on.”  
“It’s nothing.” She looked down. “I’m sorry for troubling you.”  
“You…” horizon voice, “are wasting the apology. Just show me.”  
She folded back her cloak.  
“How did you do it?” he asked, raising his eyebrows as she hesitated.  
“The Engorgement potion I was brewing overspilled.” she murmured.  
“Engorgement potion? It’s no surprise you had an accident brewing it. Such potions are usually brewed by NEWT students. Arrogant as always, Black.”  
A moment passed. Ingredients simmered.  
“I know I was stupid Professor.”  
“You’re to go to Madam Pomfrey. Take this with you.” He handed her a vial, once again without looking at her.  
“What is it, sir?”  
He frowned and raised his eyes to hers: “A healing balm for your leg.”  
Unable to sustain the contact of that stranglehold gaze, she looked down. “Thank you.” With the bottle clutched over her chest, she bowed, then made her way to madam Pomfrey.  
“Should have come to me straight away.” The nurse said, as Lucia’s burn smiled up at her.  
“I’m sorry.”  
“Be sorry for your leg. I don’t know if I can prevent scarring.”  
“Professor Snape gave me this.” Lucia handed it to her, but the nurse only looked at it after it had been in her hand a few moments.  
“Well.” Pomfrey was almost surprised, “You’re a lucky girl. This takes months to brew. I didn’t know Snape had a vial.” and she opened the bottle and started applying it to Lucia’s leg. Buds of feeling - weedy, hopeful - were weeping at the light.

“She’s unarguably arrogant, Albus, I daresay you spoil her.” Snape was pacing Dumbledore’s office.  
“You think I spoil her, Severus?”  
The pacing stuttered. “I just mean to say… Practising complex potions of that level, without any supervision and with unchecked confidence, will only lead to her hurting herself.”  
“She is more capable than you give her credit for, Severus, and much more sensitive.” Dumbledore’s voice was oddly quiet. “Did you know that this year she has been consistently asking me what she can do to make me proud?”  
What little colour there was on Snape’s face bled away.  
“I was just trying to impress upon her the importance of upholding your reputation, Headmaster…”  
“Oh Severus,” There was a small smile in between the lines of Dumbledore’s mouth now, “My reputation means nothing. That she can stay kind, wise and just is all I want for her.” The solar system orbited in his omnipresent irises as he spoke. “The future will be unkind to her, Severus…” He sat back and entwined his fingers. “But I have to say, you’ve been unusually emotional about this. Does she remind you of someone?”  
“I am uncertain.” Snape said, looking away. “I am just concerned about the injuries she gets from practising potions and magic alone. She has a tendency of not telling anyone.”  
“And that is why you taught your first years how to make the healing draught, isn’t it?”  
Snape pressed the buttons along his chest.  
“And that is also why she would benefit from having some extra tutoring.” Dumbledore said. “There is, of course, no obligation, but if you would like to do it, Severus, by all means… Ah! Lucia.”  
“Good evening Grandpa, Professor Snape. I’m sorry to interrupt.”  
“Don't be silly Lucia. Professor Snape was just telling me how you are excelling in your potions class.”  
It was instant-whip-delight: she looked at both of them then at her chest in an endeavour to swallow it. “Really?”  
“Yes. Keep working hard, Lucia. You’re doing yourself and your house proud.”  
“Thank you, Grandpa.”  
“There is no need to thank me.” Tens of thousands of smiles had passed over his mouth, yet there was always one for her. “Now, was there something you wanted?”  
“I just came to ask you about this spell, but…” she glanced at her potions professor. “I’ll come back another time.”  
And then she was gone. Snape had barely looked at her but, along his chest, his barbwire buttons were piercing him.


	5. Chapter 5

It was September of Lucia’s second year, and the pupils were clamouring about the new student ‘Harry Potter’. Snape had spent the night staring at his ceiling. Lily’s eyes, they said: he had Lily’s eyes. During the sorting ceremony, Snape could feel himself sweating. When, finally, the hat sorted the boy into Gryffindor, he felt himself exhale: just a teaspoonful of air, but it was flavoured with his soul.  
Dinner started and he did his best not to look at the child. The boy had scruffy hair like his father, a curdling grin like his father and glasses, like his father.  
But he had Lily’s eyes.  
“Say, S-Severus?” Professor Qurriell spoke, to his left.  
“Yes?”  
“Which one is she - Lucia Black?”  
He had thought it would be about Potter, so his relief was perhaps a little too obvious as he pointed her out; knew exactly where she was, with a textbook and practically the rest of the Ravenclaw student body. There was a third year boy, not taking his eyes from her. Snape regarded it, then went back to his dinner.

As soon as the banquet finished, Snape syphoned Lucia from the rest of her house as they moved to the Ravenclaw common room.  
“Come with me Black.”  
“As you wish professor.” her smile was timid as she followed, yet she was more comfortable around him now and he knew it from the way she had stopped looking at her shoes when he spoke to her. The first years watch her go, but Snape’s eyes stayed on the corridor, listening to the sound of her footsteps.  
They didn't speak during the walk. As they waited for the staircases to change, she looked at the worn sleeves of his shirt under his cloak. It was his third robe out of his seven.  
The door to his classroom opened by itself, but he made sure to close it manually behind them. The six degree air was warm.  
“The Headmaster has approached me with a proposition.” Snape sat at his desk. In the candlelight, the pickled colours of the jars on his shelf flickered.  
“Yes, sir?” Lucia didn't sit. Glass colours were over her looking down cheeks.  
“He has proposed that I give you private lessons in the evenings.”  
Now she looked straight up, into those abandon shaped eyes, “That would be a lot of work for you, sir.”  
“The one with the work will be you.” he said. “But it would mean that you can practise your magic under adult supervision. Furthermore, I feel you would make excellent progress with someone to guide you.”  
“Professor…”  
“Of course, if you are opposed to the idea, there is no obligation-”  
“I want to.” her hair fell over her shoulders as she bent forward. “Please teach me.”  
“Good. Then it’s settled. Monday evenings at six o’clock and Friday evenings at seven. Don’t be late.”  
“I won’t Professor.” she said with a smile. “Thank you. Thank you so much.”  
Snape nodded, and she put her hands over her chest before she left. The smell of vanilla stayed in the room. He inhaled it uneasily.  
Potter had Lily’s eyes.

“I spoke to her the other day.”  
Students were passing the potions professor on their way to the great hall. Winter sunlight was in strips over his trousers.  
“Who?”  
“Only the hottest girl in school.”  
“Lucia Black?”  
“Yeah.”  
“She was all over me. Couldn’t get enough.” Malfoy smirked, his hands in his pockets. “I think I’ll let her be my girlfriend.”  
There was some airy guffawing from Crabbe and Goyle, which stopped as their professor strode past them into the Hall. One of the soles of his shoes was coming loose; he’d fix it later.   
As soon as he entered the hall he saw her, eating her salad with a book. Malfoy was a young boy, her age. He understood it. Yes, he understood it, but he was surprised at her choice; she could do much better.  
In the process of pulling out his chair, he accidentally caught sight of Potter. The child was playing a game of chess with Weasley and, upon watching them, Snape decided that he should have given them more homework. Lily would never have wasted her time like that; she liked to listen without interruptions. With a sigh, he sat down and forced his gaze elsewhere. One of Lucia's friends tapped her shoulder and, for a minute or so, he observed her converse. Then her eyes were in his direction. She gave him a fleeting, shy smile, then looked back at her book.  
“Intriguing girl, that one.”  
Professor Quirrell was beside him, observing her. He took up his goblet and smiled into it. Perhaps her look had been for him.  
“Who?” his nonchalance was convincing.  
“Lucia Black… Do you know who her father is?”  
Other conversations were fizzing in some faraway frequency. Dumbledore had become aware of them both.  
“I don’t.” Snape took another mouthful and turned to join another conversation.  
“An alluring girl.” Quirrell said. “She will grow up to be extremely beautiful.”  
Already was. But he didn't say it. Dumbledore looked him in the eye, gently exposing him.

“That is all. Memorise the recipe before your next lesson.” The potions professor sat at his desk and began marking as soon as he finished speaking. There was the relieved sound of packing away. Snape could see Lucia's hands as she closed her book; hers was the desk directly in front of him.  
“Hey, look who’s waiting outside.” It was a clumsy whisper from the back of the room.  
“Harry Potter! Nice to meet you.”  
There was the boy’s brattish voice in response. Snape couldn't help himself, he looked up and, only by accident, saw the interest on her face - from the side. In the doorway, Harry Potter was shaking hands. The class had begun to move toward the door, but before she moved, Lucia looked back at her professor. Eye contact. Then her hands rose to her chest. She smiled and looked at the ground.  
“Have a good afternoon, Professor.” she murmured, responding with her body to the pull of her friend.   
“Oh, Harry Potter! Nice to meet you! I’m Abigail Parker. And this is Lucia Black.”  
“Nice to meet you, Mr Potter.” Her voice was full-bodied.  
“H-hi.”  
Snape clenched the air before striding through it to the door.  
“One would think…” he glared at the mass of students one by one, noticing the blush on the first year boys’ faces, “…That none of you had lessons to be at. If you would rather clog up my doorway, you can compensate with your house points.”  
He could tell she was ashamed without looking. In the tired light he saw Parker coaxing her away and Harry Potter’s imbecilic expression, like his father’s. Snape turned his back on them all, his sunburned emotions splayed over rocks.


	6. Chapter 6

Halloween. Snape was limping around his classroom, taking down bottles, opening jars, the potion in front of him was almost the wrong colour.   
There was a knock at his door.  
“What?” The stalk between his fingers broke and pollen bled over his fingerprint.  
There was a moment before her voice sounded.   
“I’m sorry Professor, I didn’t mean to trouble you. I just brought you something… I’ll leave it outside.”  
He turned around, but the door was between them. The pain in his leg bent him over; too late he got to the door. There was the memory of her body down the corridor and a vial: a healing potion of a better colour than his. He picked it up and pollen smeared over the glass. That same pollen smeared over the door as he closed it, then sat down and poured her potion over his leg. The skin gritted as it mended and his head fell against the stone. When had she noticed? He saw filaments of hair, over the white-sand-beach of her shoulder, then rolled down his trouser leg and threw the vial into the bin. Once, in their third year, Lily had given him a burn balm for a curse of Potter’s. He had never told her that the balm had made the burn worse.

He woke up late the next morning and went straight to the dungeons. No breakfast, since his wound had sickened his hunger. There was no time anyway. Her class. Some of the students were waiting already.  
“Straighten your tie, Taylor.” he said as he passed, swatting the boy on the head. Usually, Lucia was the first one at his room, but today she was absent — her best friend was missing too. He did the register, and unintentionally stopped at her name. It was only a spacebar of a pause; he carried on so quickly that nobody else noticed. Parker was present after all. He delivered the lesson, aware of the empty desk.  
The bell rang. Before any of the students left, the door opened. An insufferable fifth year prefect entered the dungeon.  
“Professor Snape, Professor Mcgonagall sent for you.” he said.  
“Very well.” Snape flicked his wand and homework wrote itself on his board. “I expect you to have completed this by the next session.” he looked at the class. “I suggest you copy this down before leaving. There will be no excuses for not completing it.”  
With that, he followed the prefect down the corridors, eyeing the boy’s creaseless robes. After seven minutes, he arrived at the hospital wing. There was ice around the entrance.  
As he opened the door, he heard Mcgonagall. Snow was falling in nostalgic crumbs.  
“Just calm down, Black, you’ll only make it worse.”  
“I’m trying.” Lucia’s voice was panicked. “I just can’t control it. I-I’ll fix the beds I promise.”  
“Heavens, girl, what’re you worrying about the beds for?” Madam Pomfrey was wringing her hands. “Calm down.”  
“Ah, Severus.” Mcgonagall gave him a nod and held his sleeve as he approached. “She’s been hexed by another student.”  
“Indeed.” Snape said, watching the girl on the frosted bedsheets as she clutched at her hair, turning it white.  
“Exactly. Is it something that you can fix? I’m not sure whether to call Dumbledore back from his trip.” Mcgonagall’s voice was multicoloured.  
“Stop touching your hair, Black. You’re making it worse.” Madam Pomfrey said.  
“You’re right. You're right.” As Lucia drew her hands down to her chest, a flurry of snow covered the remaining beds. “Professor!” she sobbed.  
“Black.” Snape approached her; she looked up at him, her lips together, her white hair over her chest, icy tears over her face. “You’re coming with me.”  
“But professor, this ice-”  
“Do not answer back to me, Black.” he said, a little closer to her than usually prohibited. “Get up. Now.”  
She complied. As she touched the side table, it froze.  
“Do me a favour Black, and don’t touch anything.” he said, walking out of the ward. She followed him, the snow trailing behind her. He took her to a spare room in the Dungeons, but not without her nearly freezing the staircase in place and causing a commotion amongst the paintings.  
“Sit here.” he instructed. The chair froze as she did so. “Who hexed you?” and he started taking down ingredients and tossing them into the cauldron. When she didn't answer, he glanced up at her disdainfully.  
“Acting pathetically righteous is not benefitting anyone, Black. Tell me who hexed you, or I’ll give you a drink of Veritaserum.”  
She looked down at her knees and snow started to spot her uniform. “Two Slytherin sixth years, sir.” her cloak was in waves over her stomach. “Patel and Craig.”  
“Why did they hex you?”  
“Because…” she bit her snow coloured lip. “Because I… wouldn’t date Malfoy, Sir.”  
His hands faltered, but she was still looking at her frost skirted socks.  
“I find that difficult to believe.” he said. The vial in his hand was getting lighter as he poured.  
“So did I sir. But they called me the ‘heartless ice queen’ and then hexed me while I was eating breakfast.” Her body crumpled. “I froze the hall by accident.”  
“It is not something that is difficult to remedy.” he stirred the cauldron, the violet colour reflecting against his cheeks. “It was the fault of those who hexed you, and they will be duly punished. Not…” his hand slowed as he glanced at her, “…by you.”  
Gently, she raised her head.  
“Yes, sir.”  
The potion began to hiss. He turned his attention to it.  
“May I ask… what potion you are making, sir?”  
“A Citoden potion. It will warm you enough to counter the hex.”  
“I see… what ingredients?”  
“Half a cup of asphodel, coal and pinewood. After that, crush in the riolen at two minute intervals.” Then, softly, “It isn’t a difficult potion… I can teach you.”  
As he moved his foot, the snow clumped around his shoe.  
“Thank you, professor. I would like that.”  
He didn’t look at her. Swaying violet light. Bubbles.  
“Then we will cover it. During your lesson on Friday.”  
Her snow over him. “It won’t trouble you, sir?”  
“No.” He moved to wipe the snow from his cloak, but stopped. “The potion is ready.”  
“Thank you Professor.”  
“I will need to administer it, as you are freezing everything you touch. However, if you prefer, I can call someone else to do it instead.”  
A pause. There was the sound of decanting liquid.  
“I don’t mind, professor.”  
“Very well.” His voice was compressed. He approached her and wondered what her face would be like years from now.  
“Open your mouth.” he said. The vial touched her lips and she flinched from the heat as she swallowed.  
“Your potion was helpful last night.” he said, raising the vial again, “Thank you.”  
That delight in her candy apple eyes. As she finished the potion, the snow stopped. He almost wiped a drop from her chin, but instead turned away and started to clear up.  
“I’ll help,” she said, standing. Snow was melting on the stone floor.  
“No.” he raised his hand. “Your body will still be unstable. Go back to Madam Pomfrey and get some rest.” the sound of glass, “I don’t want you freezing my equipment.”  
“Okay, professor.”


	7. Chapter 7

Lucia’s midnight wandering started as soon as the last Ravenclaws departed for bed. It was a habit of hers to leave the common room at night in order to practise complex magic which could only be performed in the darkness. Every Friday, she listened to the woollen goodbyes at the base of the dormitories, then put her book away and climbed out of her bed, pulling a cloak of a haunted grey over her pyjamas. After a swift revealing spell, Lucia left the dormitories and then the tower. Above her right shoulder was a blue flame, fluttering in the shape of a bird, ready to burst into flaming feathers the moment someone approached. But there was no one. Lucia wondered whether Snape was patrolling the corridors. He didn't like to sleep, she knew it from the purple under his eyes. Did he lay awake, or read? What colour were his bedsheets? She reached the unused classroom, pushed open the door, and closed the iron latch behind her. Using another detection charm, she checked that she was alone. Then she took out the piece of paper from her pocket and read the spell three times in the moonlight before taking out her wand and readying it.  
“Delluminum artus,” she murmured, taking a number of steps forward and twisting her wand. Darkness from the room gathered at the tip, burning the colour of stars. In front of her appeared a figure, a shadow of a man. It was so familiar that it took her aback. Darkness swirled over his voiceless form. Lucia reached out to take his hand. The figure reciprocated the gesture, and their palms touched. It was a lonely sensation.  
“Can you dance?” she asked. The shadow carefully took her hand and spun her around. It was his height; it had the length of his arms and the same distance between the palm and fingertips. Throughout the soundless dance, she kept her eyes on its profile, yet eventually she had to look and pull away. The dark form stayed, smoking, before her.  
Then it reached for her again and she let it hold her in a cloudy embrace. Still against him, she ended the incantation; the room darkened and the shadows returned. Her weight seemed unmanageable.  
“I am surprised at the circumstances in which I find you practising this magic.”  
She started at the voice; Albus Dumbledore was behind her, standing in the outskirts of the moonlight.  
“Grandpa — I’m so sorry.”  
“Such complex magic should never be performed alone.”  
“I… I’m sorry.” She couldn't meet his eminent eyes. “It was such a personal spell, I…”  
The sound of his ancient, crumbling laughter only made Lucia look more ashamedly down.  
“Magic can be a way for us to explore ourselves.” Dumbledore said, taking a step forward. “It seems you have learned something important tonight.”  
There was the intrusive sound of the door and Professor Snape flowed into the room. “You called, Albus?” He saw Black in the centre of the room, with her burned coal cheeks.  
“Ah, Severus,” Dumbledore beckoned the professor over to him; his tone was jovial. “I have apprehended a student who was using particularly advanced magic, alone and after hours.”  
She wanted to disappear, and Dumbledore knew it.  
“I see.” Severus said, tasting the syllables as he uttered them. “And I suppose you want me…”  
“To keep an eye on her, Severus, yes.” Dumbledore’s entwined hands nodded. “Ensure she doesn't put all your effort to waste.”  
“Very well.” Snape’s mouth was contorted.  
“Good.” Dumbledore said. “Now that we have established that, Lucia, you may return to your dormitory. Professor Snape will arrange with you the details of time when you can use this room while supervised.”  
“Yes, Grandpa,” she said, moving quickly to the door. “I won’t do it again.”  
“I know.” and Dumbledore smiled before lifting his hand in a solitary wave.  
“Thank you.” she spoke as she closed the door, still unable to look directly at either of them. A moment passed in which Dumbledore looked only at his hand.  
“She performed the Delluminum artus spell, Severus.” he said, turning to the potions professor as the limbless dark took hold of their faces.  
“Delluminum artus? Are you sure, Headmaster?” Severus felt his long sleeve.  
“Absolutely.” Dumbledore’s smile read like a tragedy. “You should have seen it. Magnificent.” Then he turned to the potions professor and took him by both shoulders. “He must never find her, Severus. Never. She would be invaluable to him.”


	8. Chapter 8

Third year. Snape didn't see her at the welcome meal since he had to deal with Harry Potter and the flying car. It was late when he got back to his room, still enraged at the boy.  
As he neared his door, he saw her standing there, looking up at the ceiling, the suit of armour multiplying her. As he neared, she looked up at him, the sensual shape of torch flames against her body. It was a modest smile, as if she had forgotten the exquisite expression she saved for him in their private lessons.  
“Sorry to bother you professor.” she said, searching through her bag. “I just wanted to give you a potion I brewed.”  
“You are not bothering me, Black.”  
“Thank goodness.” This time she served him a generous helping of her smile.  
“How was your holiday?” It was unusual of him to ask her a question about herself, and they both knew it.  
“It was good, Professor. Thank you for asking.” She was quiet for a moment. “I practised a lot, especially the Nightingale beverage you taught me.”  
“Hm.”  
“For you — a twilight moonbeams potion, Professor.” It was a fragile laugh. “Only joking. A Sweet Recollection potion for you, sir.”  
For a moment he did not know how to respond.  
“Thank you.” he said, taking the vial from her and putting it into his breast pocket. His hand remained there.  
“I had better go.” she bowed slightly. “My friends will be wondering where I am.”   
“I’ll give you a note.” he said, reaching for his wand.  
“No need sir, the prefects won’t catch me.” Her hand went over her mouth. “I probably shouldn’t be saying that to you, professor.”  
“I’ll pretend I didn’t hear it.” he said, fingers still on the tip of his wand.  
She smiled. “You’re too good to me, professor.”  
“Even I can be indulgent sometimes, Black.”  
“I’m not surprised, sir, you’re always very kind. That’s why I-” Even as she spoke, she began to blush. “Have a good evening, professor.” Once more she bowed, if only to avoid looking at him, then escaped down the fluid corridor.

She had borrowed the room for the purpose of practising her magic, yet she knew the distance from one wall to the other; she knew about the discoloured brick three rows up and about the fallen away mortar on the ceiling. With Dumbledore’s permission and Snape’s frequent observation, she went there on Friday evenings after dinner. Today she was replicating the universe with the Constellation Lumis spell which she had seen in a book that Snape had lent her. For weeks now, she had slept with that book under her pillow, its leather skin cold like his. But the book knew his fingerprint better than she did.   
As she set up the spell by pointing her wand at the corners of the room, the pages of the book, now open in the corner of the room, trembled. The door opened and Lockhart fairgrounded into the room.  
“Ah, Miss Black. What on earth are you doing in here?”  
Lucia finished murmuring a part of her spell before she turned to him. He was another victim of her bullet hole beauty.  
“I have permission to use this room from Dumbledore, sir, to practise my magic.” she said, the tip of her wand knee height.  
“Well - what magic are you practising?” he stepped into the room with clingfilm confidence. “I can probably teach you a thing or two.”  
“The Constellation Lumis spell, professor.” she knew his smile was confused. “You are welcome to watch, if you would like.”  
“Very well, very well.” he said, finding a space against the wall and smiling at her. She continued the spell. After some minutes, the room morphed into the solar system. Lockhart looked at the ground with some perplexity, then looked up at the starlit student.  
“Incredible.” he said, coming away from the wall and walking through space to Lucia.  
“It’s a beautiful spell,” she said, crouching over Saturn’s ring and reaching into it. “Saturn’s rings are made of ice, you know.” and she lifted a fragment of gritted H20 and handed it to her professor with a smile. “A souvenir for you, sir.”  
As he took it, the universe exhaled. The door opened once again, and Snape entered the room.  
“Black, it is time for you to vacate the room. There has been a-” he raised his eyebrows upon sight of Lockhart.  
“Professor.” she smiled at him, “I finally did it. What do you think?”  
But Lockhart understood the powdery expression better than she did.  
“Good evening, Snape. I was just teaching Miss Black the uh- the…”  
“The Constellation Lumis spell, professor.” she said.  
“Yes, yes, that most tricky spell.” The ice was dripping over his fingers, down his wrist onto his robes. “Well, you won’t be needing me anymore - seems you’ve gotten the hang of it, Miss Black.”  
Snape did not move his contemptuous shoulders as Lockhart tried to pass without touching him.  
“Black.” As soon as Lockhart was gone, he moved into the depths of the cosmos.  
“Yes, professor?”  
A frown settled on his face. He almost said something critical, and Lucia waited for it for some moments. Then she moved to Jupiter, and looked over at him through the nebulous, orange light.   
“May I keep it a little longer, professor?”  
“Keep what?”  
“The book, Professor.”  
He followed her in, the ingredients of life swirling by his ankles. “The book? Of course.”  
“Thank you.” she smiled, trying to cup the element in her hands. “This spell made me think of you.”  
His frown got up. He moved to her, with the hesitation that permeated all his movements when he was alone with her.


	9. Chapter 9

“Professor…” the potion she was brewing was spitting colour up her arms. Her sleeves were rolled up and her back was impeccably straight.  
“Concentrate, Black.” He was close behind her. She finished adding the dittany, then wiped her eyes with a handkerchief.  
“How is it professor?”  
“As it should be. Cover it now and leave it for seventeen minutes. Did you set the timer?  
“Doing it now, sir.” she said, winding the clock, then noting the steps she had just completed in her book. When she had finished, she watched her professor, who was washing his hands in the vodka coloured water. He took a towel and dried his hands.  
“Professor…”  
“What is it?”  
“It’s about Harry Potter.” she noticed him clench the towel.  
“Yes.”  
“Um… about him speaking parseltongue.” her voice had become oddly quiet. “Everyone was saying how strange it was… how it connected him with the Dark Lord.”  
“Being a Parselmouth is understandably associated with the Dark Lord.” he said, folding the towel and replacing it. “It is a rare gift.”  
“Yes… it’s just that… I was worried, because…”  
Snape waited, his hand still on the towel.  
“Professor, I also…”  
He looked round at her, his chest tight.  
“I also understood the snake.”  
Silence.  
“And the Headmaster knows?” his heartbeats were choking him.  
“Of course, Professor. He said it’s nothing to be concerned about, that lots of people can speak to snakes. But…” Now she began to clear away her utensils. “But it made me anxious Professor. I haven’t told anyone else. I just thought that since you’re Slytherin’s head of house, that you… maybe knew some other students who were Parselmouths or…”  
He watched her back. Could be. It could be. He had not seen it before, however… The skill, the capability, Dumbledore’s willingness to raise her. The thought left him hollow. When he spoke, his voice was faraway.  
“It is nothing to be concerned about. For propriety’s sake, I would keep your gift to yourself. But it does not diminish you. I do not think any less of you for it.”  
She smiled at him, but the shape of her mouth was a karambit; he could barely look at her.  
The timer sounded. She went to the potion and began to stir. “Now I add the scales, don’t I professor? And leave it overnight…”

“Yes… Yes, she is indeed Voldemort’s daughter.”  
Snape staggered so vigorously that he had to support himself on Fawkes’ perch.  
“And that is why you raised her?” he asked, watching the frown on Dumbledore’s cardigraphing forehead.  
“Her mother, as you are probably now aware, was my niece. Of course I would raise her.” hours, minutes, years were compressed into Dumbledore’s voice, “Yet I raise Lucia with the knowledge that when he returns, he will reach out to her.”  
Above them, the portraits stirred.  
“And you expect her to stay with you? To go to him?”  
“What do you think? You know her well enough by now, Severus.”  
Snape thought for a moment. “I believe she would stay.”  
“As do I.” Dumbledore sighed and light passed over his spectacles. “Though it is a decision that will be incredibly difficult for her.”  
There was the quiet of things unsaid. Eventually Snape sat in the chair opposite.  
“When will you tell her?” he asked, looking up from the table.  
“When she is mature enough to make her own decision about her future; when she understands what it means to devote oneself to atrocities; when she understands the power of her kindness and love.”  
Snape rubbed his forearm before the next question. “And you don't think these attacks… have anything to do with her?”  
“Ask yourself this question, Severus, and you will know my answer.”

Snape couldn't remember how to treat her. His soul was flooded and he was afraid the liquid would leak on her. The Dark Lord’s daughter. His daughter. With hindsight, Snape was able to admit to himself that he had noticed her dark, almost haunted resemblance to her mother, and also, he conceded, to the photographs of Tom Riddle that existed in the trophy room. That such a modest girl could appear so unintentionally lofty was now obvious. She had the proud demeanour of her father but the the humility of a Dumbledore. And then there was her still juvenile beauty. Her mother, too, had been a beautiful woman, though Snape had never been enticed by her aesthetics as so many of his cohort had. Yet this allure of Lucia’s, this seemingly effortless appeal that had so irritated him before, was almost ridiculously inevitable.  
Their private lessons continued, but Snape was more formal with her than he had ever been. Lucia, believing it to be a reaction to her disclosure of being a Parselmouth, was also especially careful around him. In this way, a riddled distance grew between them.


	10. Chapter 10

With the escape of Sirius Black came the headlines, and with the headlines came Dumbledore; Albus had actually arrived on his doorstep, had taken off his slippers and left them on his doormat, and then helped himself to coffee — the only non-alcoholic beverage Snape owned. Over the chipped mug, in the melancholy lounge, Dumbledore conceded that Harry Potter might go to his godfather, might try to bring him to justice. Snape scoffed at the idea of the brat being capable of any real pursuit, and Dumbledore accused Snape, once again, of underestimation. For what seemed like hours, but was actually a very focused half an hour, Dumbledore spoke of the precautions he would be taking to keep Potter safe. At the mention of Lupin, Snape stood and began to pace, and Dumbledore, while refilling his own coffee, had wondered whether the potions professor would actually walk out of his own house. It was, naturally, a precaution to keep Potter protected, a way of finding out the truth; these facts seemed to offer little consolation to the Professor, and it was only when Dumbledore brought up Lucia that Snape finally stopped pacing. To the observation that Lucia would be more likely to go to her uncle, Snape did not object, and, as the conversation around Lucia proceeded, Dumbledore realised with some surprise that Snape was much less argumentative. He left Spinners End with a different, equally motional end in sight — one which might come to pass many, many years later.

Lucia did not stay at Hogwarts that summer, but instead stayed with her uncle Aberforth. It was there that she learned of Sirius Black from the newspapers she always collected from the owl on behalf of her uncle. About her family, her grandfather had never spoken, and she had always been respectful enough not to enquire. So Lucia, while eating breakfast, read the newspaper with only a vague sense of apprehension. She even folded it and placed it in her uncle’s seat at the dining table without thinking back on the photograph of the man who may well have been her father. Only when Aberforth came downstairs and saw the headline did she realise that this Sirius Black was related to her: her uncle had looked from the picture on the front page to his niece twice. The first time to initiate Lucia’s suspicion, and the second time to confirm it. She waited until the evening, when he was three butterbeers fuller and always most amiable, to ask him if he knew whether hers was a muggle or a magical surname. Finally confirmed in his impression that his niece had seen through his impassivity, and with the belief that one question answered would be many more avoided, he made the mistake for which his brother would reprimand him for the rest of his life: he told Lucia that her name was a magical one.

It was an accident that Albus learned about his granddaughter’s awareness of her surname, and it happened during the welcoming meal at Hogwarts. He was walking to the teacher’s table in the great hall with his hands behind his back, having just learned that Harry Potter had collapsed on the train. That his granddaughter had produced a non-corporeal patronus to keep the dementors away from her carriage had not surprised him, though he had wondered where she had learned to do so, and was considering whether to ask her to teach Harry how to do the same. He looked over at her helping herself to an uncharacteristically large serving of chocolate pudding, as was her custom on the welcome and Christmas meals. And then the accident:  
“Oi, Black.”  
From the Hufflepuff table: Ernest McMillan. She turned, chocolate pudding still on her spoon.  
“Hello Ernest.”  
“Didn’t I tell you already — Ernie is fine.” The Hufflepuff to his left nudged him in the ribs. “Listen, we were wondering—” another elbow to his waist; Dumbledore had slowed. “No, I was wondering…Your surname is Black.”  
“Yes.”  
“You related to Sirius Black?”  
For the first time in his life, Albus realised the subtlety and poise that his granddaughter possessed. Her “I don’t believe so.” was gracious and composed enough to fool even the most astute thirteen year old, but its very excellence was what disconcerted him. He sat at the table and, perhaps instinctively, looked over to Snape, who was frowning into his whiskey.


	11. Chapter 11

It was Christmas eve, and Dumbledore was waiting in his office with his thumb in the space between his bottom lip and his chin. His quill vibrated slightly in the inkwell as the stairs rose up to his office door. There was, as always, a knock.  
“Come in, Lucia.”  
The door made no sound and she stepped inside the room and closed it behind her.  
“Good Evening, Grandpa.”  
“Come, sit. It is unlike you to stay by the door.” he waited until she was settled, then entwined only the very tips of his fingers. “Sherbet lemon?”  
“No, thank you Grandpa.”  
“Ah, you children grow out of sweets so quickly.” He reached for the bowl of candies. There was the sound of the disturbed sleep of wrappers, and he grasped two candies. One he placed before him, under the triangle of his hands. The other, he began to unwrap.  
“These were always your favourite.” He said it at the exact moment that the sweet went into his mouth. With lips protruded by the sweet, he smiled. Lucia watched him fold over the wrapper into a neat cube, then reached for one herself.  
“How did you discover that you are related to Sirius Black?”  
In an act of perfect timing, he had waited until her caution, with her sweet’s wrapper, had been stripped. The sherbet lemon rose to her lips; it hovered there.  
“Uncle Aberforth told me, Grandpa.”  
“Ah. I see.” Now he began on the second sweet. Fawkes leaned over to examine the wrapper of the first. “During summer?”  
“Yes Grandpa.”  
“Why did you not ask me?”  
She seemed not to know what to do with the sweet. Eventually, she flattened the wrapper and placed it on top. The attention of Fawkes went to it.  
“You wouldn’t have told me, Grandpa.”  
“Ah.” his voice was slightly muffled, “I can see why you would think that. I have never spoken of your family… Do you know why?”  
“To keep me safe, Grandpa.”  
There was a slight sucking sound as he moved the sherbet from one side of his mouth to the other. “There is that.” and his hands intertwined once again; “Sirius Black was your mother’s cousin, Lucia. Your true grandfather and his grandmother were siblings. I suppose that makes you second cousins.”  
Dumbledore had prepared this exact wording months in advance; he had wanted the liberty of watching her. At first her chin quivered, and then she took a warbling breath before nodding at the tabletop.  
“Say what it is you are thinking, Lucia.”   
“I just…” her hand rose to guard the lemon from Fawkes. “Are we related, Headmaster?”  
The sound of feathers. It was as if the white powder in his mouth had turned flammable. He stood, moved around his desk, but hesitated there.  
“Your mother was my niece, Lucia. So, like Aberforth, I am your great uncle.” His hand went to her back; his next sentence he uttered with such gentleness that she would not have heard it from any further away. “But I like the sound of Grandpa better, don’t you?”  
His hand rocked as she nodded. Only now did he decide that the distance he had interpreted as respect from his granddaughter was also a preparation.

Christmas day. Snape had a present from her outside his room as usual: A bottle of Felix Felicis. It changed colour against his palm as he chose a book to read for the day. At intervals, he looked out of the window at the whispering snow and listened for the secret. The time for dinner came with the same rapidity as any time which he might spend in her presence. He closed his book and felt the writing, then stood and checked his reflection, wincing indignantly before striding out of his room and down to the hall. Once there, he realised that Dumbledore had moved the table so that the teachers and students would be sitting together.  
“I thought that since there were so few students, we could all eat together Severus.” Dumbledore said, in response to the question mark shape of Snape’s cloak. “I also thought that it might be prudent to watch Potter and Black carefully.”   
“Of course headmaster.”  
It was the repetition of the statement, rather than the statement itself, that had alerted Snape to the possibility that Albus knew of some development that he did not. The other teachers arrived. Minerva’s wind chime voice sounded repeatedly and there was laughter. A first year student arrived and sat at the table, stubbing his foot as he did so. Not long afterwards, two more arrived, then Potter and his friends. From Potter’s careless chatter, Snape established that the boy was untroubled by any new development. Dumbledore began handing out pigs in blankets. As he did so, Snape watched Filius’ hand around his wine glass. It was through this glass that he saw Black in the doorway. Slightly surprised at the solitary table, she approached and pulled her hair behind her ear.  
“May I?” she said.  
Dumbledore conjured a chair for her beside her potions professor. She glanced at the chair, then smiled and seated herself. But she wouldn’t meet his eyes, even when the fabric of her watery cloak moved out to meet his in high tide. It was a touchless touch; Sybil and Minerva’s argument sounded over it. He reached for the potato at the same time as Lucia, but she pulled her hand back to her chest before they touched. Her hair fell behind her shoulder as she turned to look at him. There was colour on her cheeks as he put the potato onto her plate for her. Her breath was an ellipsis. Dumbledore finished his joke. There was laughter, but not from Lucia. Snape could feel the bottle of Felix felicis in his pocket.


	12. Chapter 12

Her feet in the snow were enchanted in order to keep them dry. She was out to practise the Nesessum charm, despite the current curfew, despite the dementors, and despite the recent break-in of Sirius Black. Taking out her wand, she began to murmur the incantation. The snow before her formed into a swan, with wings that she shaped with wand movements, one at a time. Then she saw it in her peripheral vision - the Grim. She lowered her wand, watching the dog with a sombre expression. The only movement was that of her blooming breath and the interrupting snow. Then she knelt down. The dog approached her until it was close enough for her to touch. It nuzzled her arm, then her frosted fingertips. She stroked it and it licked her hands. Then she looked it in the eyes, her hands either side of its face.  
“Sirius.” she whispered.  
The dog whined and she fondled his matted hair.   
“I thought you’d have to be an animagus,” her finger snagged on a knot. “There would be no other way for you to get into the castle.” then she looked into the oneway eyes. The dog put a paw on her lap. The castle door opened. She stood, her lips bleeding through the snow, then pulled her hood over her head and began to retreat to the greenhouses. The dog followed, with his head by her hip. In the shadow of the glass, she turned away from him and unclipped her cloak. The wind rocked the secret material. She felt the cloak come away from her fingertips and after a moment looked toward the ruined man in her garment.  
“Thank you.” he said, his crumbling face managing a small smile. He took the potion she handed him.  
“A warming potion.” she said as he smelled it.  
“And a bloody good one.” Sirius said, taking a sip and handing the remains back to her.  
“No, keep it.” she said, “You may need it.”  
His haunted eyes went to hers. “I’m not a bad man. I don't want to kill Harry Potter.”  
“I know.” but her smile was diluted.  
“And I didn’t kill those thirteen muggles.”  
“Many people think that you did.”   
“It’s not true. It was Peter Pettigrew. He betrayed the Potters. James Potter was my best friend, I wasn’t about to let him get away with betraying him. But when I confronted him, he framed me for his murder and for those thirteen muggles. He’s the reason I came to Hogwarts - he’s still alive.”  
“Still alive?” Snow was settling on her affluent hair.  
“Yes. Yes. Do you know Ron Weasley?”  
“I know him.”  
“Peter is his rat.”  
Her hands dropped slightly.  
“His rat?”  
“Yes, yes. It’s how he hid himself and framed his death.”  
“Unbelievable.”  
“I know.” he shook his head, his knuckles showing from under the cloak. “But you must believe me.”  
“I do.”  
“Then you won’t… you won’t hand me in?”  
“No.” she rubbed her jumpered arms. “I will help you.”  
Immediately he pulled her into an embrace. “Thank you! Thank you, my lovely cousin.”  
She nodded, then came away from him. He looked at her properly for the first time. Her scarlet cheeks and never-ending eyes.  
“Goodness, you remind me of your mother.” his voice was almost buried by the snow. “Sometime I’ll tell you about her. You know, I knew you were hers as soon as I saw you. You resemble her a lot. I've been watching you all year, you and Potter. I knew you would trust me.”   
He had expected her to smile at this. But she uttered a polystyrene sigh and looked away.  
“The potion you drank contained Veritaserum, Sirius.” she said. He frowned slightly, then his rippling laughter undulated under the snow.  
“Clever.” he said, rubbing his forehead. “Very clever.”  
“I had to know you were being honest.” There was snow at the ends of her hair and something wrapped in her voice. Some alluring, cavernous thing that he couldn't make out; she was thinking of someone, he could tell by the distance in her expression: the same expression as her mother.  
“You can ask me anything.” he said, glancing at some movement in the greenhouse behind him. “Anything. I have nothing to hide from you.”  
Her unrestrained smile was sudden. She told him that she understood, then brushed the hair from her face. “I’ll talk to my Grandpa. He’ll know what to do.”  
He reached for her hand. This time, she giggled. It was a musical sound, ghosting in the space between snowflakes even after she left him.

She used a detection charm, then slipped into the entrance hall unnoticed. Her lips were together as she passed the suits of armour, then the candles. Snow was melting at the ends of her hair. At the top of the stairs, Peeves was bobbing up and down. She slipped into an alcove and waited for him to pass.   
There was the sound of footsteps. Lucia felt the wall for some means of escape, then felt a shadow over her: Professor Snape was standing in the mouth of the alcove.  
“I hope…” he spoke in his agonisingly slow voice, aware that she had almost hit her head against the wall as she turned, “That you have a very good excuse for being out this late at night, Black.”  
He didn’t need to see her Dementor kissed cheeks to know that she was mortified, “I don’t Professor.”  
“Come with me.” And he began the journey to Dumbledore’s office, almost too fast for her to keep up. Frizzing Whisby.  
The headmaster was at his desk, writing. At the sound of his door, he looked up from his work and regarded them both.  
“Well, Miss Black, you can explain yourself.” Snape said.  
“I was outside-”  
Snape rounded on her. “I expected as much. Do you have any idea how dangerous the castle is at this time? For you above all others!”  
“That can wait, Severus. Let Lucia finish.”  
It took a moment for Lucia to gather the courage to begin again. “I was on the grounds, a little way before the greenhouses, when-”  
“I don't believe how stupid you have been.” Snape’s snakefang voice.  
“Severus, please.”  
“Professor Snape is right. I know I was being reckless… I’m sorry.” the colour was trainsmoking down her neck, “But I saw him — Sirius Black.”  
Both men recoiled.   
“He’s an animagus. He approached me as a large, dark dog which resembles the Grim.”  
“I’ve heard enough.” And Snape’s eyes had some of the feral quality of the Grim. “Do something, Headmaster!”  
“Let her finish, Severus.”  
Her barely parted lips. “I spoke to him.”  
“You spoke to him?” Dumbledore now.  
“Yes, he told me that he didn’t kill the muggles or Pettigrew.”  
“He was lying.” hissed Snape.  
“Forgive me, sir, but he couldn’t have been. I gave him a dose of Veritaserum under the pretence that it was a warming potion.”  
Both men were buffeted into another silence.  
“Very clever thinking.” Dumbledore said. Snape groaned and twisted away from them.  
“And how do you know your Veritaserum was effective Black, have you tried it?” His eyes were on the dust on Dumbledore’s bookshelf.  
“I did.” she was blushing slightly. “He told the truth, Professor — it all made sense. Pettigrew is alive — he’s Ron Weasley’s rat.”  
“His rat? What else did Sirius tell you Lucia?” Dumbledore was leaning forward.  
“That Pettigrew was the Potter’s secret keeper and betrayed them to Voldemort.” She saw the way Snape grimaced from the side and almost mistook the expression for disbelief. “Sirius went to kill him that night, however Pettigrew escaped him.”  
“This is preposterous.” Snape covered the wreckage of his face, “I refuse to listen to any more of this.” and he strode out of the office, slamming the door as he left.  
Lucia watched the reverberating door and then looked at her Grandfather. “Do you believe me?” The stillrocking door was louder than her.  
“Yes, Lucia, I believe you.” but his voice was tunnelled, “Though I am deeply upset that you were out at night, considering the danger you were in. He could have seriously hurt you.”  
The ticking of Dumbledore’s grandfather clock was making dents in the quiet. “I’m sorry.”  
“Keep this to yourself for now Lucia.” he said eventually, “And I must ask you… Not force you, but ask you… not to approach him until we have investigated.” There was an unusually prominent moistness to his eyes. Lucia made her promise with a nod to him, then left his office.

Stupid girl. Stupid girl. Magma rage, the planet’s innards, pulsing within him. Stupid girl. He knew this would happen — she was too trusting. Conscious of his own anger, he slammed open his office door. If she was stupid, he was more so. As he put his palms against his desk, he could feel that tremor of his body reach for the wood. Lily. Lily. He needed to see her, to feel her, to make her real again. It was his fault, and now she was perishing all over again. He searched the tabletop for her features: in all that meandering oak, there must be some grain like her, some swirl reminiscent of her hair. But as his eyes moved down the surface, he could only see the swell of the ocean. He stood and began to pace. Lily. Lily. Everything, all of it, was for her. Looking after Lucia was a favour for Dumbledore. It had always been just a favour.  
Lily. Her tree bark hair and that unashamed kindness. She was nothing like Lucia. He felt a sudden, confused contempt. Stupid girl. Let her go to her uncle. Let her go. Let her join the Dark Lord. She was just a favour.  
Snape moved to the pensive. He had borrowed it from Dumbledore, just to see her face again. Although there was no resurrection stone, he at least had his memories. He would stand until his legs were aching, watching them all night…


	13. Chapter 13

Lucia’s hesitating hand was in the air, but it wouldn’t knock. He hadn’t spoken to her in Potions, hadn’t even looked at her. Even now, she felt the scald of it. Her hand rose into the candlelight, then she knocked once, twice. By the third knock, her hand had lost all its strength. She brought it to her chest and listened. When there was no response, she pushed the door.  
“Professor?” she stepped into the room. “Are you here?”  
The only sound was of her footsteps. In the corner of the room was a shallow stone basin with a liquid-gas substance spilling out of it; her Grandfather’s Pensieve. She used a detection charm and, having determined that she was alone, almost left. But this had been the time of her lessons for the last two years and he had never cancelled one before. She went to his desk and sat down, then took out a book but couldn't read more than a page at a time. Half an hour passed like this, and by then she knew he wasn’t coming. She put her book away and almost left for the second time. Yet now it was the Pensieve which halted her. She approached it, then leaned over and saw rays of helios hair circling the surface.

He should have gone. Should have, but he didn’t want to see her and he couldn't even look at her right now. She would be waiting, and he knew it — it was just like her to believe in people like a fool. He dipped his spoon into his bowl. At the other end of the table was Lupin, looking awful as always and talking about a boggart or something equally ridiculous. Harry Potter entered the hall. Unsurprisingly Remus had taken a liking to the boy, saying on the first night how he reminded him of James. Snape looked down at his dinner. Foolish girl, she’d go right to the Dark Lord like this…

Lucia pulled her head out of the pensive, her heart pounding. Lily. Lily Potter. Lucia had heard of her before, but Lily was prettier than she could have imagined, softer, but volcanic also. She was the reason for everything: his distain for Sirius, his coldness towards Potter and his care over him — Lily was the cause of all of it. There was a scissoring through Lucia’s chest; she couldn't help the tears falling one at a time into his pensive. The way he watched her, the way those memories followed her… Even now, his gaze must be the same — insistent, obsessive, unceasing. The sound of Lucia’s breath rent the room until a conversation outside shocked her into silence. She looked up at the door with her reddened cupid’s bow and quickly took up her bag, almost forgetting the detection charm. Still with the image of the long, bonfire hair, those emerald eyes and that tall, sinewy body, so different to her own, she made her way directly to the Ravenclaw tower. She was grateful for the change of riddle, for it forced her to stop crying and think. She used a calming charm on her skin, solved the riddle, and avoided the expectant beckoning of Taylor by feigning a stomach ache. Without undressing, she climbed into bed and pushed her face into her pillow.

When Snape arrived at his office after dinner, he expected her to still be waiting. He was relieved that she was not - he was too exhausted for her, too exhausted for the way she drew all the poison from him, and too fatigued to face the sediment she unsettled. He went to his desk and thumbed through some papers, thinking back to the day’s potions session. She had sat at the front of the room as usual, her hair folded behind her ears. Taylor, insistent as always, had gotten out of his seat to go and speak to her. How many house points had he taken?  
He dipped his quill and began to mark the recipes that they had produced, waiting for hers despite himself. He recognised her handwriting immediately; there was a small mistake in the quantity of dragonfly wings, but still it was beautiful: the best in the class as usual. It was only after observing it for a time that he placed it at the bottom of the pile with a detached ‘Well done.’

From then on, the potions professor would pass Lucia in class without looking at her or at the potions she concocted. No matter what she created, it would receive a vague passing grade that any other student would have protested at. Their private lessons, which he had maintained ever since the headmaster had requested it of him, had been abandoned; at seven o’clock on a Friday he would remain in the great hall long after all the other students had left, reading a book under the overcast ceiling. Yet, despite all of his endeavours to keep away from her, the haunting melody of her eyes had been getting louder. If he grazed himself against them for even a moment, he was overwhelmed by an inexplicable weakness, which he was certain extended to his occlumency. Whether this was a reaction to her similarity with the Dark Lord, or whether it was the fact that with every month he was able to envision more clearly the woman she would grow into, he did not know.


	14. Chapter 14

It was her class: a double, endoftheweek session. Snape looked up from his desk and saw Taylor waiting outside, his mouth open in some sort of pre-emptive laugh. The professor waved open the door and began writing on the board. As usual, Lucia sat the front, taking notes as he spoke, her hair falling forward as she rested her quill on her bottom lip. He stood behind her while the class wrote their essays on the Wolfsbane potion, perturbed by her coral smell and the restless plumage of that quill on her lip. Jackson frequently looked up at her, only hastily returning his eyes to his paper when Snape noticed him.  
Class finished. He had expected her to leave with the rest of the students, but she stayed behind, her packed bag by her side.  
“Make it quick, Black, I have things to do.”  
“Of course, Professor, I apologise…” she clutched her bag strap. “Um… have…”  
“Spit it out.”  
“Have our lessons come to an end? I only ask because for the last three weeks I’ve been waiting, and… well I didn’t want… to keep waiting if…”  
“You were never asked to wait, Black.”  
“I- I know Professor, I just-”  
“Not to mention that I am under no obligation to give you any extra of my time.” he straightened his cloak in an unusually self-conscious movement. “There are occasions when I am too occupied to give my time to a delusional little girl who is so starved for attention that she believes anything her murderous cousin tells her.”  
He heard the gasp, but didn't look up.  
“Furthermore, since it is such an inconvenience for you to wait, you may be relieved to know that it is no longer necessary. Your lessons are at an end. I believe Professor Lupin was a good friend of your cousin’s. You can go and waste his time.”  
The words wouldn’t leave the air. He looked up and saw her tears, but only for a moment, for she covered her face and hurried out, taking his breath with her and leaving him alone in a room that was too big. The buttons over his chest became smothered by his left hand. Perhaps he had been a little... He strode out after her, looking for her in vain. At the end of the corridor, he leant against the dungeon wall with his fist on his chest.

Last period — Potter’s class. The boy’s fumbling fingers were bruising the Silweed herb. Longbottom’s arm was quivering as he stirred.  
“You may as well pour that away Mr Longbottom, any additional stirring will only ruin it further.” Snape said, before picking up the essay that the boy had left on his desk for grading. “Well, this is no surprise.”  
Many of the Slytherin students were looking up from their potions, sniggering.  
“‘The moonlight potion is a hard potion to make.’ Commendable, Mr Longbottom, your command over your subject matter is awe inspiring. ‘It was invented in 1341 as a replacement for the light of the moon.’ If you had actually listened during the lesson, you would have learned that the potion was made in 1431. Or was your inability to identify the correct date actually a byproduct of some sort of illiteracy?”  
Unapologetic laughter from the Slytherins. Snape glanced over at Potter and those stolen eyes, which were filled with contempt. With the intention of crushing that boy’s arrogance also, he moved over to condemn his potion, but realised now that some students were looking toward the door. He turned and saw her, explosion colours on her cheeks. None of his students noticed that almost imperceptible change of expression, but Lucia did. The colour moved down her neck as she mistook it for dislike.  
“I’m sorry to interrupt, professor.” She found it difficult to look into his eyes. “Professor Sprout sent me with the Garglereed you requested.”  
“Leave it on my table.” he said, turning away from her and meeting Potter’s hateful expression. He was uncomfortable enough without that photosynthesis green assaulting him also.  
“As you wish, professor.”  
He listened to her move to his desk. Somebody had their hand up.  
“What?”  
“Well sir, it’s just that Miss Black looks like she’s struggling a bit. Can I help her?”  
“If I were you, Mr Mason…” he leaned close to the brat, “I would be more interested in the poorly attended potion before you than the business of other students. Unless, of course, it is your intention to fail this subject as miserably as Longbottom.”  
The boy quickly returned his attention to his work and, after a moment, Snape heard his classroom door close. It was a self conscious sound and, as he looked over at Longbottom, he realised that she might have heard what he had said to the boy. Ignoring the student with their hand up and an overflowing cauldron, he sat at his desk.

Lucia did not break her promise to her Grandfather — never again did she approach her cousin, though she often noticed him in his animagus form laying in bushes and shrubbery on the way to lessons. On these occasions, she would nod to him with a decorum which would soon become habitual to her.  
Dumbledore did not, however, have Lucia promise that she would show no interest in her family. Whether his lack of caution was a mistake or a test, it freed Lucia to research the identity of her mother with a determination she had never shown anything else. On an evening in March, she broke into the Slytherin common room and narrowed down the potential candidates for motherhood to Bellatrix Lestrange, Andromeda Black and Narcissa Malfoy. For three months, she sustained the belief that her mother was alive and that she had not been orphaned, but abandoned. At the end of those three months, however, unable to link any of these women with her grandfather’s family, she was forced to concede that she was further from the truth than she wanted to be.

On the last evening of the school year was the customary Ravenclaw party; the theme was fancy dress. There had been a vote to decide who would be dressing up, and Lucia had been voted as Professor Trelawney. With Abigail’s help, she put on a pair of glasses with an eye-enlarging charm. Her bespangled arms heralded her arrival to the common room, where she greeted the cheers with:  
“I sense death here.”  
She seated herself beside a first year boy, who asked her to read his future. Surrounded by students, she patted his knee.  
“There seems… perhaps… a journey ahead…” Lucia upturned his hand in her own, then leaned very close to him, “You will eat too many sweets on the Hogwarts Express, and then — how horrible! Why, child, I see… a sugar rush…”  
Hilarity ensued; Lucia Trelawney was asked to give many a prophecy until the arrival of Padma Patil, who was impersonating the lead witch from the Weird Sisters, and who knew the words to every song she was requested to sing. More impersonators arrived. One fifth year boy as Filch had transfigured his alarm clock into Mrs Norris, and this incarnation rang instead of purred. Stuart Ackerley had become the Minister of Magic, and was handing out fudge flies while saying: “The ministry is doing everything it can.”  
The greatest upheaval happened at eight-fifteen, when Professor Snape appeared in the doorway and the room silenced. He walked to the window and began taking house points. It was only when a first year girl, twenty house points poorer and near tears, asked him how he had gotten into the Ravenclaw common room that he turned to her and said:  
“Polyjuice potion.”  
There was a round of applause, then a number of rounds of contraband butterbeer. The games began. They tried the muggle game of Twister, during which Lucia turned the spinner and made predictions before it landed. When it settled on the wrong colour, she would use wandless magic to change it, and even took requests while saying: “I hear a voice from the heavens…”  
Then they played a game in which one used wingardium leviosa to levitate a body of water above their head while others took turns trying to distract them enough for the water to fall. After several students had been drenched, there was a clamour for Lucia to take part. She was able to keep the water aloft though jokes, spells, and fireworks, until Robbie Renalds, still in the form of Snape, strode forward and kissed her on the nose. The water covered them both and Lucia blushed so much that there were shouts for Robbie to kiss her again. Robbie, however, had to take a moment in his dormitory, where he decided with near deliriousness that Lucia Black was in love with him.


	15. Chapter 15

With the beginning of the fifth year came the announcement of the triwizard tournament. On the night of the announcement Lucia and her companions were searching the trophy room for information about the previous winners. It was Taylor who discovered a photo of Tom Riddle.  
“Lucia. Come here.” he was leaning so close to the glass cabinet that his breath was forming on the surface.  
“What is it?” Elijah, who was closer, answered instead of Lucia. “I can’t see what you’re pointing at because you’ve breathed all over the cabinet.”  
“You’ll see what I mean when you look at it. Lucia!” Taylor wiped his breath away, then left the cabinet to find Lucia.  
“I see what you mean. He looks just like her.” Elijah called after him.  
Lucia and Abigail were looking at the House Elf Honourifics. Taylor pushed between them and took Lucia’s hand. “Lucia, you have to come and see this.”  
“Always interrupting something, Taylor.” Abigail folded her arms and turned after them.  
“But she has to see.” When he turned to Lucia, he became abashed at the particularly lovely expression she was showing the space in front of her. “You have to see Lucia, I think he might be related to you or something.” Taylor stopped in front of the photograph and pointed to it. “Have you ever heard of Tom Riddle?” he was still holding her hand. “You look awfully alike.”  
“I haven’t. Grandpa never speaks about my family.”  
“Don’t you think this Tom Riddle could be your uncle or something?” Elijah had come to stand on the other side of Lucia. “Look at the resemblance…”  
“Or maybe your dad.” Taylor said. He felt Lucia’s hand tighten against his, but when he looked down at her, he wished he hadn’t spoken. Beside Tom Riddle’s award was another trophy, this one without a photograph.  
“What is it?” Abigail spoke from beside Elijah. “Is it this?”  
“No it’s this.” Taylor gestured again. “Why? What’re you looking at?”  
“Well, this trophy for winning the Triwizard cup a few years back says it’s for ‘Claudia Black’."  
Abigail said. When she looked up at Lucia, she saw the most delicate expression on the forehead of her best friend — it could have been wonder, or loneliness, or something else entirely. Her hand went to Lucia’s sleeve.  
“Do you recognise the name…?”  
“No…” Lucia placed a hand on the glass. “No, Abi, I just…”  
“Triwizard champion, huh? Should be easy to research.” Elijah peered over Abigail’s shoulder and her warning look. “Are you interested, Lucia?”  
“I don’t know.” Lucia’s glassy voice seemed too delicate for the air.

It was his most hated kind of event. Stood in the headmaster’s office, his hands shut, he had asked whether he could avoid attending the Yule Ball.  
“Alas, Severus. You would be far too missed.”  
Snape did well not to let his ire happen on his face, “Headmaster, Minerva is more than capable of managing on my behalf. No one will miss me.”  
“I know someone who will.”  
When Snape glanced toward Dumbledore, the headmaster was leafing with infuriating detachment through his bowl of Liquorice Snaps. Both men knew Snape had a question that was too risky to ask. Thus, as always, Dumbledore trapped him on the path between his desire for knowledge and his wariness of it. That was how Snape came to be, against almost every desire, stood in the great hall in his creased dress robes. The universe on the ceiling lit the room; galaxies above student heads shifted blue and red. The oceanic music bubbled as countless students walked in, hand in hand. Professor Flitwick said something unimportant and Snape answered without moving his gaze from entrance. The melting sound of Flitwick’s laughter sounded. Under the pretence of enforcing discipline, Snape circled the hall once more, moving past the table of food where he scolded a student who had replicated the sky in crumbs. He heard whispering; it was only noise until her name.  
“There’s Black. Who’s that with her?”  
The music had a heartbeat.  
“She’s alone.”  
“I thought Robbie asked her.”  
“Yeah, but I saw his name on the Black-Rejection-Board.”  
“The hell’s the Black-Rejection-Board?”  
“Don’t tell me you didn't see it in the common room? Collin took photos of all the people she turned down and posted them up — The shot of McMillan is hilarious.”  
There was laughter, then the milky conversation moved on to something else. In his attempt not to look in the direction he expected her to be, Snape suffered the irony of seeing her faster, for she had tried to sneak in through the teacher’s entrance. Beautiful, undoubtably, in those deep dress robes, with her oblivion coloured hair tumbling forever and her eyes so alert. Someone tapped his arm.  
“Sir, Professor Mcgonagall sent for you.”  
He nodded quickly, and when he looked back those eyes were on him. Someone watching would have seen Lucia and her professor look away simultaneously. He did not glance in her direction again.  
The champions danced and his applause at the end was genuine enough. As soon as others began to move onto the dance-floor, he searched for her with his gaze — he couldn't help it. She was dancing.  
Dancing.  
The sight staggered him. She had her eyes closed and was enjoying the music by herself, her undone hair rocking against the drumbeat. A dancing pair interrupted his sight. He waited for them to pass, the taste of his heart in his throat. Never before had he been able to envision so lucidly the woman she would grow into. Smith approached her, but she shook her head, her cheeks flushed in the icelight. And then her eyes went to her professor. Her body stilled, but her chest maintained its seashore motion. Another pair blocked his view. When they moved, she had also gone. After a moment of searching, he saw her sat on a bench, watching the planets orbit above. He wanted to get up and go to her, but he quickly dismissed the inclination and would have left the hall had it not been for Karkaroff, who took hold of him.  
“Severus—”  
“Not now.” he freed his arm and used it to take up his whiskey glass with a certain disgruntled dignity.  
“But you have felt it, haven’t you? Felt Him.” Karkaroff was whispering, “The Dark Lord…”


	16. Chapter 16

It was midnight. Lucia was alone in the practice room, casting a water charm with an intricate series of beautiful wand movements. She thought of Claudia Black as she cast it, then of Tom Riddle. Two strangers: she knew nothing of either of them, and there was no evidence that they were anything other than names in a trophy room with no connection to her or each other. And yet there was something in the deep hair, something in the inhaling eyes of Tom Riddle that made her feel she was looking into a mirror. Something in the curvaceousness of Claudia’s name, something about being an unheard-of-Black — a Black by blood but not recognition — that reminded her of her own wish to pass unnoticed.  
Only Dumbledore, distracted by the tournament and whispers of The Dark Lord, would have recognised that Lucia was thinking deeply about her identity. The spell she was practising culminated into the shape of Tom Riddle and then it was gone. The room became quiet. She ran her hands through her hair, then exhaled toward the ceiling. Suddenly, futilely, she thought of Snape. Despite his hostile attitude toward her, despite the way he treated her so unfairly, she still felt him leaking through the spaces in her and she didn't know how to dam it. Slightly out of breath, she moved to the other end of the room and began the routine again.

Snape’s knees were showing from under his grey nightshirt as he moved through the corridors. Etherial wandlight was showing the way to the disturbance. Who was it? A Durmstrang student? Potter again? That thief in his office? He felt the needle cold of the castle floor in the soles of his feet as he approached Filch at the bottom of the stairs.  
“Filch, what’s going on?”  
“Ah, Sir, I’ve found this.” Filch held out a golden egg. “Peeves has been up to no good - stolen it from one of the champions.”  
He sighed. “There are more immediate concerns.” and he pushed the egg back towards Filch. “Someone has been breaking in to my office. Come, we need to find out who- ”  
Then sounded the clunking of Professor Moody, an ellipsis punctuating the night.  
“Pyjama party is it?”  
Both men turned to him.  
“Professor Snape was just telling me that someone broke into his o-”  
“Shut up.” Snape glanced at him maliciously, but Moody had already understood. He took a step toward the magical stairs.  
“Someone broke into your office you say?”  
“It’s not important.” Snape’s voice was glacial.  
“On the contrary, that’s very important.” and Moody began to ascend the stairs. “Who’d want to break into your office?”  
“Most likely a student, raiding my stores in an attempt to make illicit potions.” Snape shrugged, but his shoulders were tight, “No matter; it’s happened before.”  
There was a pause.  
“Recon they were after potion ingredients eh?” Moody leaned over his staff. “Not hiding anything else in there are you?”  
Snape could feel his skin changing colour. “You know I’m hiding nothing.” he said in a soft, dangerous voice. Moody nodded slowly, then began to retreat back down the stairs.  
“There’s something I think you should see.” he growled, beginning his journey down the corridor. Snape hesitated a moment, then followed him, taking hold of his left arm as they walked. Eventually Moody stopped at a door and opened it with his wand. Lucia Black was inside, and she stumbled when the door slammed open. The water at the end of her wand poured onto the ground but she quickly collected herself and vanquished it. Snape could see the anxious colour on her face as she turned to them.  
“Well, well, little Lucia Black.” Moody clunked into the room. “What magic were you practising?”  
She looked desperately at them both. “The Aqua Chandelis spell, professor.”  
Snape was trying very hard to keep his emotions compact.  
“Student out of bed in these early hours, practising magic beyond the ordinary wizarding level. Not exactly within the school rules, Black, even if you are the headmaster’s granddaughter.”  
She shook her head quickly and looked down. Both of them could see that colour smoking down her neck. Moody took another step into the room but Snape couldn't move.  
“Let me see your bag Black.” Moody said.  
“Professor.” her eyes did the pleading.   
“C’mon. I’ve no doubt a talented student like you has put an anti infiltration charm on it. Am I going to break it or are you?”  
She didn't look at Snape at all, but he watched as she moved to her bag, removed the charm and then handed it to Moody.  
“Good girl.” he growled. They were crude oil words and Snape wanted to burn them; he wanted to break those fingers rummaging through her things. “Hm. Invisible extension charm too. Clever girl.” and Moody pulled a notebook out of the bag.  
“Want a look professor?” he asked, handing the journal to Snape.  
“No.” Snape said, but he took the notebook and folded it under his arm. He watched the rose colour on Lucia’s cheeks as she watched Moody.  
Next, Moody pulled out some text books. “Can you read ancient magic, Black?” he asked, frowning down at the books.  
“Yes professor.”  
His mouth opened slightly. He handed the book to Snape and continued to rummage.  
“Ah ha.” He pulled out four vials of potion. “Here we are.” with a groan he put down the bag and inspected the potions. Then he uncorked one and smelled it. “Now I’m no expert Snape, but I believe that this is an invisibility potion.” And he handed it to the potions professor.  
“It is indeed.” Snape regarded its perfect translucent colour, then pocketed the vial. When he looked back up at the girl, he realised that her supplicating eyes were on him. His breath became shallow.  
“And this is a dragon flame concoction.” Moody twisted the vial in his fingers, and there was surprise in his blue eye now. “How on earth…?” and he quickly, greedily opened up the other two vials. “What are these?”  
“A Regalis memoris potion, professor and…” she inhaled. “Veritaserum.”  
“How did you learn to brew these?”  
Snape was very still.  
“Self taught, professor.” she said. Snape glanced at her, at the downfall of her cloak and those eyes.  
“And how did you get the ingredients?” he leaned toward her now, his magical eye uncharacteristically steady.  
“I…” the movement of her lips was soft.  
“I think I’ve found who was breaking in to your office and stealing your supplies Snape.”  
This time, Snape couldn't help his shocked expression. He looked at her and saw that her beautiful lips were together. Then her eyes, as always, went to him.   
“I have some receipts, professor.” she said, crouching over her bag. “For the ingredients… even though…” and she took out a delicate purse, unclipped it, then pulled out the receipts and handed them to Moody. “Even though I bought them under a false name…”  
He inspected them briefly, and then gave everything he had taken back to her.  
“You must have a serious passion for potions, Black.”  
Three was a ripping in Snape’s chest. He tried to keep the flyaway emotions down his oesophagus.   
"I do, sir." and she began to replace the objects Moody was handing her.  
"Not everything is on these receipts either."  
"I appreciate that, sir." she said quietly. Once her bag was full again, she straightened her back and regarded her professors.  
“Well, here’s what’s going to happen.” Moody said, rubbing his leg. “You’re going to go back to your dormitory now.”  
“My punishment…?”  
“No punishment, Black, no punishment. Only, I have a request.”  
“Yes professor?”  
“You’re to come and see me tomorrow afternoon. I want to see what magic you’ve been learning from these books of yours.”  
Her hair slipped over her shoulder as she looked away. “As you wish.” she said, taking up her bag and moving past them to the door. As she passed Snape, he could smell her perfume. Then she was gone and he was conscious of Moody’s magical eye upon him.  
“Not hiding anything, you said.”  
Snape turned to him violently. His face had let go of its composure.  
“I’m not hiding anything.” they were lethal, sharpened letters.  
There was a buoyant laugh from the Auror. “Right, right.” he began to clunk out of the room. “Pretty girl, isn’t she? Beautiful even. Her friends say she’s kind and she’s incredibly skilled…” and then he turned around. “But there’s something about that skin, dark hair and those eyes that reminds me of someone.”  
The silence was barbed. Moody’s magical eye was quivering and Snape was trying to swallow his nausea. He knew too much.


	17. Chapter 17

From the darkness in Snape’s eyes the night before, Lucia had understood that he didn’t trust Moody. So, on her way to Moody’s classroom, she drank the counter serum to veritaserum in case the Auror asked her any questions. After taking a moment to catch her breath in the empty corridor outside his room, she knocked. The third knock was hesitant.  
“Come in.”  
She stepped into the room. Moody looked up from his desk at her.  
“Well, sit. I’m not going to bite.”  
She moved to the chair and held her robes against her legs as she sat.  
“Now, I’ve seen that you’re exceptional in Defence Against the Dark Arts lessons.” he said, scratching his chin, his magical eye rollercoastering.  
“I don't deserve the compliment, Professor.”  
“Well, I’d say you do, and I’ve seen a lot. Believe me.”  
She began to thank him, but he interrupted her.  
“I want to see what you can do in a duel.”  
“Professor?” her eyes foamed under her frown.  
“A duel, Black. A wizard’s duel.” he heaved himself up with a grunt.  
“I don't think-”  
“Consider carefully. Veritaserum is tightly regulated. I’m guessing that you don't have a permit for that little vial I saw in your bag. Your grandfather would be in quite a lot of trouble if it was known that you have it.”  
Colour flared through her. “Professor-”  
“Stupify!”  
She deflected the spell with her hand.  
“Professor!”  
He aimed another spell. The chair she’d been sitting in was flung across the room. Lucia reached for her wand.  
“Come on, Black!” another spell came at her, but she deflected it and ran to the door. He waved his wand and the tables in the room blocked her path. She blasted them out the way.  
“That’s more like it.” He sent a stunning spell at her. Though she defended against it, a stray quill cut her face.  
“Stop it, Professor!” she didn't dare turn from him. All of the implements that’d been on his table now churned toward her. She cast a shield against which quills, pots of ink, and books smashed. With a grin, he aimed another curse at her. She deflected this toward his desk, which was forced toward him. As he flung it back with his wand, she smashed open the door. Two spells followed her out into the corridor.  
“Black.” Snape was there. She turned to him, then deflected another spell. Immediately, Snape’s wand was out and his body was in front of hers. He cast a spell at Moody, who blocked it and laughed.  
“Alright, alright. I’ve seen enough.” Moody’s breath was in roadlines.  
“What is the meaning of this?” It was Snape's most furious voice.  
“Black and I were having a practical DADA session, weren’t we, Black?”  
Snape turned to her. She was out of breath and her eyes were uneasy. As he looked at her face, he noticed the cut on her cheek. He turned back to Moody with such vehemence that the Auror was taken aback.  
“It’s prohibited to use magic against a student.” The anger was hushing his words. “You could have seriously injured her.”  
“Nonsense, Black is much too strong for that.” But Moody’s breath had still not come back. Snape didn't like the smile lingering at the corners of his mouth. He eyed him for a long moment, then began to move down the corridor. “Black.” he snapped. She followed his flaming cloak down the corridor, her wand still aloft in her trembling hand. They moved through the corridors all the way to his office. With his wand, he flicked open the door.  
“In.” he snarled, aware of the shake over her body. She moved deeper into his room than she had Moody’s. As soon as the door was closed, he turned on her, “What happened?”  
Her eyes ebbed to him and away from him.  
“Professor Moody asked me to duel. He said that he wanted to see what I could do.”  
“And you complied?” his cloak was in plumes as he moved past her. She felt the air fleeing from him.  
“I didn’t.” her hands were in circles and her voice was unsteady. “I didn’t fight back. I only defended myself.”  
“How could you have been so foolish?” he moved closer to her now. Her cut was bleeding and he couldn't look away from it. “What idiocy encouraged you to go to him?”  
“I was being careful, Professor. I even drank a counter serum to the Veritaserum.” Her cheek was colouring under the cut, “I just didn’t expect… How could I have expected…?”  
“You should have come to me.” his fist was on the table beside her. Later he would reprimand himself over this statement, which he now began to retract. “The headmaster. You should have gone to the headmaster. Or your head of house, at least.”  
“I’m sorry, Professor.”  
“Your apology is worthless. ‘Sorry’ doesn't save you from the Dark Lord and it won’t save you from others.”  
“I defended myself didn’t I?” she was looking up at his unequivocally still eyes, into that absorbent darkness.  
“What arrogance.” his words were almost soundless, “Immature, unbridled arrogance. Stronger than an Auror, are you?”  
“T-that’s not what I meant…” she looked away.  
“Mighty Miss Black, young prodigy, stronger than the ministry’s most experienced Auror.” his smile was malicious. “Impressive. Impressive. Shall we test it, hm?” He placed his wand on her cut.  
“Stop it, Professor.” Her skin changed colour against the tide of him.  
“Why don’t you make me stop, omnipotent Miss Black?”  
This time she did not look away from him, but met his eyes with all the cascading emotion she was unable to hide. The pair maintained their stillness for another moment, then he returned his wand to his pocket. Lucia made to leave.  
“Where do you think you are going?”  
“Professor?”  
“Did I say you could leave?” he moved back around the desk.  
“No, sir.” and she quickly sat down. He looked at the buttons on his chest as he approached.  
“Sit still.” he was more gentle now, “That cut looks painful.”  
“It’s okay.” she made to touch it, but he stopped her hand.  
“Let me heal it.”  
“As you wish, Professor.” she fingered the hemline of her robes as he moved to his cabinet and took down a healing balm and a muslin cloth. When he turned back to her, he felt his breath in front of him, distinct from him. Lovely, all of her, more and more so each day. He knelt before her. Over her cupid’s bow he could see redness; her turbulent soul was frothing in her high tide eyes.  
“It will be uncomfortable.” he said, dipping the cloth in the balm and applying it to her face. She closed her eyes against the pain, but remained silent. Snape moved her hair out of her face and met, by accident, her open eyes. He pulled the cloth away prematurely.  
“There.” he said, turning away with obvious awkwardness. “Leave now.”  
“Yes, professor.” and she stood, her cloak closing over her. He sat at his desk as she went to the door. He expected her to leave, but when he looked up she was still there.  
“Thank you.” she said with a gentle, persistent smile. Then she was gone.


	18. Chapter 18

Every night, at nine thirty-seven, a silver contraption on Dumbledore’s office desk span. Lucia watched as its shadow quivered over the letter her grandfather had been writing. As Albus seated himself, he turned this letter over.  
“Sit, Lucia.”  
Everyone visiting the headmaster sat in the same chair, but no one sat in it quite the same way as his granddaughter did. Dumbledore’s hand rested over a slight crease in the letter — the only indication that he had turned it with haste.  
“Still too old for sweets?” he indicated the bowl of liquorice snaps. He understood from the way she reached for one that she didn’t like them. As the candies began squirming and biting in the bowl, she giggled. The sound seemed to make holes in the dam of Dumbledore.  
“How are you?”  
It was always the first question he asked. Lucia held a snap by the tail and placed it onto the table before her.  
“I’m well, Grandpa.”  
“Relieved that your OWLS are over?”  
“Yes.”  
“I heard you transfigured the examination room into a beach, complete with sea creatures and Grindylow.”  
Another giggle, opening up the flood, “Yes.”  
“And that you made a Chronos draught. Snape told me you let the examiner take it as a gift.”  
“I did.”  
It was a smile that couldn’t help itself. “Sometimes I can’t believe the things you are capable of. I don’t imagine the examiner would have ever seen that draught brewed in his life.”  
But it was not said with disbelief — it was said as if he’d always expected to be surprised. The liquorice snap writhed on the table.  
“Lucia.”  
He met her eyes. “Are you perturbed that Voldemort has returned?”  
Before she spoke, her head tilted.  
“No more than others.” she said. The snap began to wriggle once more.  
“Considering everything that’s going on, this summer, I want you to go and stay at Grimmauld place.”  
“Okay.” She nodded, her hands on her lap.  
“You don’t want to know what kind of place it is before you agree?” Dumbledore was smiling, but it was an extracting, acquisitive smile.  
“It doesn't much matter. You wouldn’t send me there without a good reason.”  
“Ah. You have always been so outwardly accepting.” An owl landed on the ledge outside the window. “Yet I know that you question things internally.”  
Lucia grinned a little and, as she did so, Dumbledore was reminded of the anarchic expressions of her mother.  
“It’s the house of Sirius, and the current safe house for the Order.” he continued, “Harry Potter and his friends will be staying there also. Your mother Claudia used to stay there during her summers.”  
He reached for his quill so calmly that Lucia almost believed that the mention of her mother’s name had been an accident.  
“I’ll send word to Sirius that you have accepted.” he said, “No doubt your cousin will be delighted that you are going to stay with him.”

It was Harry’s first night at Sirius’ home. He and the others had come out of their room onto the second floor landing and had seen Lucia Black, her beautiful, seafaring eyes characteristically serious. They hadn’t expected Dumbledore’s granddaughter to stay somewhere like Grimmauld place; she seemed only to exist in places others did not. Though she was friendly, she wasn’t vulnerable: she was as elusive and enigmatic as Dumbledore himself, and there was something haughty about her that Harry felt made her difficult to trust. It was obvious that she knew more about the Order than even the older Weasley children, but it was equally obvious from the way that she looked at them that she would never speak to them of it. She glanced at them and smiled, before her eyes were on the stairs again. Not one of them knew, or would even have guessed, that she was waiting for a glimpse of the potions professor. Instead, they imagined that she was collecting information that they didn’t have. She watched the door, her muggle clothes still. Kingsley was the first to appear. She smiled at him, then at Tonks, who grinned at her in response. Snape and Dumbledore stepped into the doorway. There was space between them and the others that only she noticed. Snape’s dark, washedlastnight hair jittered as he nodded at something Dumbledore was saying. There was no indication in his face that he had seen Lucia, but his body faltered. Then Molly was between them, saying something cautionary to the girl, who turned away from them all. Snape had already seen emotions beached on her coastal cheeks; he glanced at Dumbledore, who was watching Lucia return upstairs, and understood that the headmaster was also seeing the vulnerability that others mistook for indifference. The inexplicable desire to follow her to whatever heights the townhouse reached was fleeting, but it existed. As hushed voices from the other Order members interrupted, Snape continued to the kitchen, the colour under his eyes even more exhausted.

Prefect celebration meal. Kingsley and Tonks were beside her and, on the other side of the room, Ron was talking about his new broomstick. She had watched the lonely doorframe all evening, despite knowing he would not come. When she’d finished dessert, Moody beckoned her over.  
“How is your evening?” she asked, seating herself beside him, “Did you enjoy Mrs Weasley’s pecan pie?”  
“Formal as always, Black.” his voice was sandpapery. “Listen, I’ve got something to show you. Perhaps you might find it interesting. Have a look.” He handed her a photograph of the previous Order. The Longbottoms… the Potters… Sirius… then an astonishingly beautiful woman with foaming hair and antarctic eyes. Lucia’s hands tightened slightly.  
“Is that…?”  
“Your mother.” he nodded, watching her as she regarded the woman in the photograph.  
“Beautiful.”  
“Yeah. A real beauty. Superb witch too.” His chair creaked as he sat back. “They say you take after her.”  
“Perhaps.” she said, slowly handing the photograph back to him. “…As much as anyone can resemble what they don’t know.” and her eyes stayed on the edge of the photo between Moody’s fingers.  
Tonks changed her nose in the corner of the room. There was laughter and melting voices. After a moment she stood and bade him goodnight. Moody watched her go with his magical eye.

Lucia had memorised the height of every single step in Grimmauld place. Ever since she’d arrived in July, she’d been wandering through the house, entering every room, looking in every cupboard. Each time she ascended the stairs, she was aware that her mother’s hand had also passed along the same banister - perhaps they were even touching through leftover fingerprints, meeting in the wastelands of what might have been.  
Those in the Order had told Lucia that her mother had been in love with a muggle, but she knew it was a lie. When Walburga’s portrait had seen her, the woman had reached for her, shouting a circular “Finally!” that Sirius had quickly stifled with the curtain. Ever since then, she’d been encouraged not to speak to the portrait. Despite being a member of the Order, despite spending her summer with more people than she had ever done before, Lucia had never felt the rounded shores of her isolation more vividly.  
It was in one of those moods of intense aloneness that she stepped onto the landing and saw her grandfather outside the room that had once been her mother’s. Laughter from the kitchen below steamed against the ceilings.  
“Good evening.” Dumbledore’s lunar voice waxed in the corridor. “Are you enjoying yourself here?”  
“Yes, Grandpa.” she folded her hair behind her ear.  
“But not like you enjoy it when you are alone, correct?” His crystalline eyes settled on her. “I have been made aware of your prolonged periods of solitude.”  
There was a thump as Buckbeak shifted on the floor above. Lucia took hold of her fingertips and a rose colour thorned her face.  
“Do they think me very strange?” she asked.  
“No, you are not strange. It is a grandparent’s privilege to worry about their grandchild. I am simply concerned that you are lonely.”  
“Not lonely, Grandpa.” her voice was an eclipse. Dumbledore regarded her.  
“You are thinking of your mother.” he said, the stars on his cloak rippling as he entwined his hands.  
“I have been.” Lucia murmured.  
“I know you want to know more about her.” Dumbledore had to squint against the sudden sandstorm of her gaze. “What have you learned?”  
“To be patient.”  
He smiled. “Soon you will know it all. Trust me in that.”  
“I trust you, Grandpa.” Lucia’s eyes returned to her hands. The sand settled.  
“Ah. You are a poor liar, Lucia.” his laugh was a prodded fire. “For how long have you been practising occlumency?”   
The rose colour on her cheeks overgrew.  
“Since January. I know I’m not very good still.”  
“That is because you have been practising alone.” the floorboard creaked as he stepped toward her and placed a hand on her back. “Would you like me to teach you in the new school year? I know I have not been able to give you as much of my time as either of us would like.”  
She nodded before slowly leaning into a timid embrace which took her grandfather by surprise. “Thank you.” she murmured. From his chest, she wasn’t able to see the sorrow that salted her grandfather’s expression as he looked into the distance.


	19. Chapter 19

Dark Lord’s daughter. His daughter. Daughter. Daughter. Daughter! She backed away from Dumbledore, who was standing, reaching for her.  
“Stay calm. You will understand better if you are calm.”  
But there was a cacophony. She retreated so far that she stumbled into his display cabinet. Across the room, fifteen glass goblets smashed at once. Dumbledore did not look at the fragments on their way to the floor - he was watching his granddaughter.  
“It does not change who you are, Lucia.”  
“It does. It changes everything.”  
She turned from him and began down the stairs as more things exploded in his office. At the bottom of the stairs, she forced aside the gargoyle and hurried down the corridor. Umbridge watched her pass, her amphibian face curious,  
“Black. Where are you going? Stop and explain yourself.” When Lucia didn’t stop, Umbridge attempted an immobilisation curse. Lucia deflected this wandlessly.  
“Come back here!” Umbridge used another curse, which Black again deflected. Storm clouds formed over the castle as the girl moved down the corridor then out into the grounds. When Umbridge saw them, she staggered. Dumbledore appeared beside her, his hand over her wand.  
“It is best not to provoke her further at this point.” he said.  
“Provoke-”  
Students, noticing the sudden change in the weather, peered out of classroom windows. Snape arrived beside the Headmaster, out of breath. Lucia was on the grass, moving to the lake. Her wand remained in her pocket, but the lake was heaving. Thunder sounded above her. As if responding to her frantic heart, the lake began to rise in steady beats. It began to take the form of an enormous creature. Dumbledore turned to Snape, and all it took was that fractured glance for the potions professor to understand. He ran after her.   
“Black!”  
When she didn't look around, he raised his voice: “Lucia!”  
Surprised by her name, she turned to him. He would not understand how beautiful she was, tears lining her face, until later.  
“Lucia.”  
“Professor.” A monstrous surge of lightening flared over them. He could see she was shaking.  
“Come here.” and he held out a hand. “Come.”  
“Nobody told me.” Her inhales were ravaging her chest. Rain fell over them both. “Nobody told me that he… that I…”  
“Come.” he moved closer, his hand still raised.  
“Did you know, too?” she asked, her mouth trembling. Another moment of lightening.  
“I knew.”  
She turned from him, holding herself. The lake behind them swelled. “Even you knew. You should have told me, I deserved… I…”  
Water surged over them both. Snape felt a moment of breathlessness. When he opened his eyes, the lake was swirling back into the valley. His robes were sodden; her hair was in pieces, lake leaking from the ends.  
Umbridge came between them, her wand directed at Lucia.  
“That’s enough.” she pressed the tip into Lucia’s skin. “The minister for magic will hear of this.” and she grabbed Lucia’s wrist. Dumbledore was beside them now.  
“Miss Black is a pupil in this school and, as such, her fate resides with those within it.”  
“Such a thing cannot be ignored by the ministry, Albus. I’ve never seen magic like this — in a school, no less. You are quite obviously blind to your granddaughter’s—”  
“Severus, please take Miss Black to your office.”  
“Certainly.”  
He led her over the field, past the insatiable eyes of students, down the corridors to the dungeons.

Snape closed the door and strode to his desk. Her eyes were on the ground, her eyelashes parallel with the stone. She lingered at the entrance, then, all of a sudden, she was on her knees, her hands over her face.  
“Lucia?”  
She tried to speak. The words were ‘I’m sorry’ but they greeted the air in fragments, unjoined.  
He couldn't stop himself from moving to her. In a moment he kneeling also, his arms around her, her head on his shoulder. His knuckles were making indents in her hair.  
“Forgive me.” he said, wiping away her tears. It could have been an apology for his dishonesty or for touching her.  
“You have nothing for me to forgive you for, Professor. I understand. I understand why no one…” innumerable beautiful exhales left her, in circles. Then her tears began again. “Who would want to tell me that? Grandpa must have known that I would lose control.” She tried to pull away, but he kept hold of her. “I caused so much trouble…”  
“Nothing that can’t be rectified.” he said, his fingers moving gently over her neck.  
“I gave the ministry an excuse to create problems for Grandpa—”  
“He will be fine.”  
“I wasn’t thinking at all. Who else was there? Were people watching? Grandpa always told me to keep that kind of magic subdued. Oh, Professor, what have I done?”  
“Nothing permanent, Lucia. Nothing harmful.”  
“I was just like my father.”  
His stroking stilled.  
“You are not like your father, Lucia.”  
“He is half of me.”  
“I knew your father. You are not like him.” his hands, as always, went back to her. For a moment, she let him caress her back, then she tried to pull away.  
“Everything is changed, Professor. I feel dirty, I feel as if I’m a stranger.” She felt the roughed texture of his breathing as she shook against his chest. The feel of his heart was there also.  
“Look at me.”  
And she did. That churning expression drizzled him.   
“You are Lucia Black.” he said, his hands over her arms. “You are not defined by him.”  
His cloak folded over hers as his fingers printed her skin. The look in her eyes: alkali blue, confused, almost undecipherable.   
There was a knock at the door.  
“Come in.” Snape let go of her as Dumbledore moved into the room.  
“Grandpa, I…” she glanced down at her hands. “I feel…” There was space in her sentence as she tried to understand. “I’m so sorry that I lost control…”  
“I did not expect ‘control’ after you had been told such a thing. The matter has been dealt with; to appease Umbridge, I have proposed that you spend every evening with Professor Snape in detention. I will not allow the ministry to be involved; we will do whatever it takes to keep Umbridge silent.”  
“I’m sorry.”  
“No matter what, your interests are paramount. You must believe me when I say I kept this a secret from you for your own sake.” His immortal eyes scrutinised her budded hands. “But you are old enough and wise enough now.” he knelt down. “I will hide nothing from you.”  
“You’ll answer my questions?”  
“All that I can. Maybe when you’re feeling a little—”  
“Does He know about me?”  
“Yes.” Dumbledore conjured Lucia a chair and helped seat her. “Crouch junior told him last year that you were alive. Before then, he did not know that you had survived.”  
“My mother. What really happened to my mother?”  
“She was killed by an auror on Ministry orders.”  
“I thought she was a member of the Order. I thought she was good.”  
“She was. Her death was the price for her relationship with Voldemort.”  
“Did she love him?”  
Dumbledore massaged his eyebrows before he spoke. “Yes.” The stillness came alive. “Your mother left some of her memories in my possession. They can explain her life to you better than I can. They are yours to experience but, for now, I think it best that you take some time to recover from what you have learned today. When you are ready, I will prepare everything.”  
“Okay.” her snowfall voice was like her mother’s. Dumbledore lifted his arms and, after a moment, she moved into his embrace.


	20. Chapter 20

That Snape comforted Lucia on the day she discovered her parentage was an accident that he did his best not to think about, explaining it to himself in a nonchalant, though perhaps not very honest, spur of sympathy that he would have felt for any student. Since the incident, he had been civil with her in her detentions, asking her to mark books or to grade test papers, a job she performed with admirable care. The weeks passed until it was time for the next Hogsmeade visit. There was the sparkling, cordial sound of students as they filtered down the path to the village, with hands on robes and comeincomein smiles. He observed the countless eager footsteps out of the corridor windows as he moved. Usually, he would stay within the castle grounds during Hogsmeade visits, but he wanted to avoid Umbridge, who had been asking about Lucia Black and Harry Potter incessantly. While he had described for her the number of hours Lucia had spent marking books and the many ways in which he had made Potter’s life difficult, he loathed speaking of either of them. So he took up his cloak, stormed out the entrance, and made his way through the students to the town.  
Whenever he visited Hogsmeade, he habitually visited the bookshop first. Yet, to get there, he had to go down a narrow pathway which reminded him of Lily. As he moved down it, he saw her tiger hair swaying before him. He smelled the sandalwood scent she used to wear. Always, the memory of her waited, crouching in the snow. He glanced over at the Shrieking shack, at those bucktoothed tiles and broken windows, and felt her hand on his arm. He moved over the cobbled ground with a frown, passing justbestill signs, then finally reached the bookshop and moved inside. The bell sounded as he closed the door. Old Mallory was reading behind the counter, but looked up to bequeath him a smile. Snape’s eyes passed over the bookshelves and he saw Lucia, head dipped, turning a page. He searched the rest of the shop, but none of her friends were here. They were alone.  
Leave. He should leave. But he regarded her despite himself. Loose hair, curled today. That expression she showed when she was concentrating. The way her cloak fell over her body. He breathed out the exasperation at himself and turned to leave.  
“Professor.”  
He liked the sound. Couldn't help himself.  
“Good afternoon, Black.”  
She closed the book and smiled that radiant smile for him.  
“It’s rare for you to come to Hogsmeade, sir.” she said, running her hand along the spine. His eyes met hers.  
“And it is rare for you to be alone.” he said.  
“An agreement between me and my friends. They hate the bookshop and I find Zonko’s insufferable.”  
He allowed himself a smile at this, though he felt, somehow, that there was more to her solitude than the joke shop.  
“You will be meeting with them later, I imagine.”  
“Perhaps.” It was a gentle expression, but also an expression of hide and seek. “Are you looking for a particular book, Professor?”  
“I was looking for the new releases. You?” and he raised a hand to his hair.  
It was an expression he wanted to bottle: her unblinking, sonorous eyes. “This book on animagus transformations.”  
He frowned, took a step toward her, then held out a hand with a creased lifeline: thirty sixth winter. “May I see?”  
Her smile was clumsy. She handed him the book and he turned through it.  
“You want to become an animagus?” he asked, almost soundlessly.  
“Yes.”  
“What animal?”  
“A swan.”  
“Swan?” Rare expression. He did not hand back the book. “I’ve heard that it was your mother’s patronus.”  
“Yes.” she murmured. “That’s why I…” she curled her hair behind her ear and gave an oxygenated laugh. On his face was a look of tenderness which would have shocked him had he seen himself in the mirror. She did not realise how exclusive it was.  
“Have you read McArdle’s book on fortune potions, Black?” he asked, gently moving past her. The light melted his cloak.  
“I haven’t.” her eyes followed him as he went to the appropriate section and took down the volume.  
“It has a great many potions that are beneficial for the bodily and spiritual fortune of the drinker… There are a few potions that I wanted to teach from it, but the book itself… I feel it would be something you would appreciate.”  
Now she went to him and leaned over his arm to look at it. Her smell. Her neck.  
“You know me well, Professor.”  
That beautiful face was too close; he pulled his arm away and she briskly moved to the bookshelf and tried to find another copy of the book. As she did this, he took it, and the copy of Animagus transformations, to the till. Mallory smiled and bagged them for him after accepting the galleons. Then Mallory returned his attention to his book, open on the counter, and Snape moved to the bookshelf where she was knelt down, her knees showing from under her cloak.  
“Ah, Professor, I think you have the last copy…” she said, turning around. She didn't expect him to be he as close as he was. His body that distance, her chin the height of his hand. He offered that hand, those surfaces he’d touched. She took it and stood. He handed her the bag.  
“For you.”  
“Professor?”  
“A gift.” And he raised his hand, but was not brave enough to touch her. That bubbling delight, fizzing over her face. She clutched the books.  
“Thank you.” and she smiled at them, then at him. There was some timid disbelief under her eyebrows. “You didn’t have to.”  
“I am aware there was no obligation.” He noticed Mallory watching them and quickly moved past her and out of the shop. Mallory returned his attention to his book.  
“It is probably best if you don’t tell anyone who bought you these.” he regarded her a moment. February light, edgeless, was over her.  
“I understand.” and she showed it in her smile.

“I know, Severus.” Voldemort’s absolute zero voice. Snape turned to him.  
“Know what, My Lord?”  
“I know that my daughter has grown especially fond of her potions professor. Crouch was very descriptive.”  
A monosyllabic silence. Snape did not raise his hands. “My Lord…”  
“It is a good thing.” Voldemort’s eyes, still in their endless observation, did not move from him. “No doubt Dumbledore has been poisoning her against me all her life.” he began to pace, “I would force her back to me without hesitation, but I cannot deny the allure of her coming to me of her own accord… I am, after all, her father…”  
“My Lord…”  
“You are perfectly placed for it. A young, impressionable girl, fond of her professor. Crouch was not close enough. But you… You can persuade her to come to me.” His hissing eyes rested against his Death Eater’s.  
“You don’t want to?”  
“I will do anything you command, my Lord. I fear only…”  
Voldemort moved to him with undead footsteps. “You fear what?” He was so close that he could see Snape’s throat move as he swallowed.  
“I, myself, have never seen any of this affection you allude to…”  
“You think Crouch was mistaken?”  
Snape’s chest did not move as he inhaled.  
“I do.”  
“Hm.” Finally, Voldemort moved his eyes away. The silence was toxic.  
“It is regrettable, My Lord.”  
There was a scream in another room. Voldemort did not remark it.  
“When I saw her I thought of her mother. There is a chance that… Those eyes, that body… Crouch wanted it greatly… I wonder whether you too, you also…” Voldemort’s eyes slithered back to him.  
“She is a child, My Lord.”  
“And yet, one day she will be a woman.” Voldemort rubbed the tips of his fingers together, “Come, have you not envisioned it?”  
The admission, formless, developed in his chest. A will-o-the-wisp smile flickered on Voldemort’s face.  
“It is likely that Crouch was mistaken. However - however, if she does harbour even some tiny inclination toward you,” Here Voldemort met Snape’s eyes once again, “If she is fond of you, it will work in my favour. We have time for you to discover whether there is any truth to Crouch’s observations.”  
“As you wish, My Lord.”

“This is good Severus.” Dumbledore’s office, aching gold colour. The restless movement of magic trapped in objects.  
“Headmaster how can you say…?” Snape, visibly distressed, was wringing his hands. “You heard what he said of her.”  
“Voldemort’s feelings toward her are nothing I hadn’t anticipated. You, of course, will not persuade Lucia to go to him. But you have bought us time, Severus, time!” And Dumbledore was now rapping his fingers on his desk. The alive sound of flesh and wood. “He trusts you; as long as you play your part, he will not touch her.”  
“Play my part? She is a person. I cannot trifle with her.”  
“Who said anything about trifling, Severus? I know better than anyone your affection for her, much as you have attempted to hide it from me and from yourself.”  
The gush of Snape’s robes as he turned away.  
“Crouch was not wrong, she is indeed fond of you. I am not saying that you should behave unethically, I am simply saying that there is no need to discourage it.”  
Snape’s venomous glare; his whole body was taught. “This is not a game.”  
“Indeed it isn’t. This is about keeping Lucia safe. Are you under the impression I care nothing for the child I raised as my own? Or is this about… Lily?”  
The angry colour left Snape’s face and he hurricaned out of the office. The sound of the slamming door echoed over the restless paintings.


	21. Chapter 21

Snape didn't eat in the Great Hall for the next few days; instead, he stayed in the dungeons, in the liquid light of concoctions. Two days later and it was her class. He paced his room as the sound of the students outside assaulted him. No matter how long he listened, he couldn’t tell if she was there. He looked at his board, then at the stone ground, then opened the door with his wand. He had his back to them as they entered and only looked round once he was certain they were all seated: there she was, looking down at her textbook, her hair over her shoulders. Other students were whispering to one another. He started the lesson, with the memory of Voldemort still haemorrhaging in his mind. Even Dumbledore had said Lucia was fond of him but, certainly, the Headmaster was mistaken. How could such a girl be fond of someone that even Lily Evans could not love? No, it was impossible. It was a mistake. A sickening mistake.  
As he moved between the chairs, he became aware that her perfume had changed. Stopping, he saw a mistake on her sheet. Tell her about it? She looked up at him with a fumbling smile. Trying hard as always.  
Class ended. He listened to the students talking as they left. At the door, she was stopped by Alice Lakely.  
“Black, Craig Thomas asked me to pass on a message. Asked if you’ll meet him in the courtyard after dinner.”  
She stopped. Perfect manners as always. Thanked the messenger and said yes before moving on with her friends giggling beside her. Yes.  
Yes.  
The next class arrived.

Six O’clock. Students were entering the great hall in filaments. He watched them over his unmemorable dinner. Bubbling drink. Oxygen choking. His fork tasted bitter and eventually he stopped eating altogether. Craig Thomas entered the hall with carefully pressed robes and his shirt tucked in. The boy’s unnecessarily long limbs were irritating. Snape observed him sit, something he had never done before, and acquiesced that the boy had that ‘desirable’ look and that popular, tryingtoohard hairstyle.  
Shortly afterwards, Lucia entered with Sprout. Their conversation was visible. Lucia laughed and dipped her head as she was wont to do when complimented. There was the taste of metal in Snape’s vision; he could perceive Umbridge rolling her meatball over her plate - the dung beetle and the ball of excrement. Sprout trundled up the aisle as Black sat down and opened her book. With her eyes on the text she groped for some pasta, but didn't eat much. Unusual. He watched Thomas watch her.  
She didn’t hurry her dinner. Thomas left the hall and it wasn’t until her friends whispered into her ear that she gasped and closed her book. Her forgetfulness was an elixir that tasted of triumph and Snape drank it from the air. Quickly she stood and wiped down her cloak before leaving the hall. Immediately he stood and followed.  
Outside, the snow was a half forgotten memory, existing only in crevices. He almost walked out into the open, stopping just far enough away to be able to hear. Students saw him on what looked like patrol and walked the other way.  
“Thank you, Craig. I don't deserve the kind things you said.”  
“It’s not kind - I mean them. You’re perfect.”  
“Not perfect,” there was a crumbling texture to her voice.  
“Perfect. I want to be your guy.”  
A pause. The snow remembered. “I’m sorry.” Almost silently, “I have someone I love.”

Snape returned to his office, his emotions flickering in the ends of his cloak. Couldn’t be. Couldn’t be. He remembered Lily’s grassy eyes, looking not at him, but at Potter. No, it was impossible. It had to be impossible. He entered his office and threw his ink-pot across the room. The surprised expression of the ink stain watched him as he put his head in his hands.  
There was a knock at the door. Another. A faltering third. Snape spun toward the door and tried to calm himself. “Come in.”  
Lucia entered the room, not looking at him.  
“Good evening, Professor.”  
“Evening.” he said, then frowned when she moved to the chair opposite him. “Miss Black, my books are marked. Today you can scrub the cauldrons.”  
The surprise in her eyes lasted only a few moments. “Okay.” She put her bag in the corner of the room, took off her cloak and jumper and rolled up her sleeves. He sat down at his desk and tried not to watch those creamy arms as she moved to his cupboard and took out the cauldron cleaner.  
Some time later, his lesson plans finished, he glanced over at her. She had her back to him, and her forearm was taught from the scrubbing.  
“That’s enough.” he said, putting his quill away. It was the first time he had looked at her all evening. “You can pack up and return to your dormitory.”  
“Yes, Professor.” She rinsed the cauldron, then put it down on the floor. With a towel, she wiped down the sides.  
“Do be hasty, Black, I have things I need to do.”  
“Yes, Professor.”  
He couldn't see her face, but stands of hair had fallen out of her ponytail. From the back of her neck, he could tell she was flushed. She picked up the cauldron, slotted it into his cupboard then replaced the lid on the cleaner and put that away too. He watched her unceasingly.  
“You can come and do the remaining cauldrons for your detention tomorrow.”  
“As you wish.” There was something weak about her voice. He wondered if he had been too unkind. She took up her bag and moved to the door. But as she made to open it, her cloak came loose and fell on the floor. She moved to pick it up, but stumbled and fell on her knees. In seconds, he was beside her, kneeling down with his hand on her shoulder. A sudden, almost unbearable pain electrified his soul — he could hear the Dark Lord’s screams. He pulled away and looked at her, his eyes wide and his mouth open. She glanced into his face and turned away almost as quickly.  
“I see him sometimes.” she whispered, collecting her cloak with shaking hands. “I thought you knew.” and she stuffed her cloak into her bag and stood up unsteadily.  
“Lucia.” he took her hand, but the pain made him let go again. “Go and sit down.”  
“I’m okay. It will pass.” she said, steadying herself with the door. “It always does.”  
He slammed his hand in front of her. “Go and sit down.”  
Her chest was sunrising as he took her hand once more and lead her to the chair. Even after he had let go, the Dark Lord’s voice was ringing in his ears.  
“It will pass soon.” she whispered into her hands. “I’m sorry.”  
He approached her and knelt before her. Could see her perspiration now, and the tremor passing over her body. He pulled out a vial from his cloak. “Drink this,” he said.  
She did as he bade. For some time, he watched the pain abate.  
“Feeling better?” he asked eventually.  
“Yes.” and when she looked up at him, her salt blue eyes were timid. “Thank you.”  
Her flowing, uncuppable gaze unsettled him - he felt everything and all of it for her.  
“It’s fine.” he said. There were more words in his exhale. They struggled against the air.

Early morning starlight. The milky way in ribbons over the sky. Peony dawn, raising herself over the horizon. Lucia sat up and tried to calm her breath. Abigail was leaning over her, stroking her hair.  
“Did I wake you?” Lucia asked, looking up at her.  
“It sounded like another horrible nightmare, Lu.” Abigail said.  
“Sorry, sorry.” Lucia wiped the sweat off her forehead and watched the creases in her bedsheets as she breathed.  
“It’s alright. I’m only worried about you.”  
Watery light shivered over the room. Lucia took her friend’s hand and then stood. “I think I’m going to go downstairs…”  
“Want me to come with you?”  
“No, no, that’s alright. I think I need to be alone.” she smiled now, “But thank you.”  
Abigail squeezed her hand and got back into bed.  
“Come and get me if you need me.” she said, turning on her side and watching Lucia leave the dormitory.  
The common room was deserted. Outside, ancient birdsong sounded. Lucia conjured herself a cloak and headed out of the common room door. Tonight marked the eighth time she had had the same dream… She had thought that the Solace Morpheous brew would calm them, but she could still see her mother’s smile, could still feel the endless agony. Snape had felt it too, she could tell from the way he had perspired after he touched her. The thought made her feel ashamed. She arrived in front of the gargoyle statue, said the password, let herself into Dumbledore’s office and took out his pensive. Portraits chattered. Slowly, she put her wand to her head and dropped the slivery thread of memories into the pensive.  
“Lucia?”  
Dumbledore’s voice. The half-light made it sound more fragile.  
“Grandpa…”  
“What is troubling you?” There was concern on his face.  
“I see him everywhere.”  
“Who?” but he already knew.  
“My father.” and she clenched the pensive. “Not only in my dreams, endlessly, but now during the day too… I think I feel… unimaginable, inarticulable - the pain when Harry’s curse rebounded.” her words began to ache, “And my mother, I see her smiling, laughing, dying.”  
Fawkes fluttered onto her shoulder; she reached up a trembling hand and petted the bird.  
“What can I do? The pensive can’t rid me of them. Horrible, horrible, horrible!” her tears fell into the spinning dish. “I can feel his hate… I get… so angry… Like I can't control… I feel like I’m slipping away from myself.”  
Her shadow began to expand beneath her. “See!” she grabbed her hair and knelt down. Fawkes crooned softly on her shoulder. “See, just like the day you told me about him. Look what I am. Look what I’m becoming.”  
The shadow began to ooze over the floor. Dumbledore quickly cast a spell to return it to normal, but it flared angrily before subsiding.  
“For so long I’ve wanted to be alone, away from everyone, to be in the darkness. But Grandpa, I don’t want to lose myself.” she sobbed, pulling her body even tighter together. She felt Dumbledore’s hand over her back and looked up at him. They embraced, an action which Dumbledore used to hide his troubled expression.  
“Occlumency will help, Lucia.” he said, squeezing her shoulders as she made to speak, “I know it is difficult now, but when you get strong enough it will help, I promise you.”  
The feel of the phoenix feathers on her cheek. She wiped her eyes with her palm. “Okay.”


	22. Chapter 22

Detention. Two minutes to seven. There were three knocks. The third was breathless.  
“Enter.”  
His own voice seemed alien to him. Seven o’clock shadows patrolled the corridor as Lucia entered the room. Before she had closed the door, he spoke:  
“You may assist with my marking. There is a collection of books in my cupboard.”  
“Yes, Professor.”  
Had he looked up, he would have seen her regard him with a collectable look which was both tender and conflicted. But he had been doing a good job of avoiding the siren of her eyes, and he wasn’t going to falter now.  
Yet Lucia noticed his sleepless eyes even though they did not go to her. She noticed his unwashed hair and that taught tendon pulsing on the back of his writing hand. She also knew that beyond the page he was marking was the Will-o’-the-wisp of Lily which, she imagined, hovered beside him always, even as he lay awake all night. Maybe Lily’s voice was humming to him under the scratching of his quill. It was not difficult for Lucia to admit that she envied her. As she moved to the cabinet and took out the books, she noticed her reflection in the glass and took a moment to observe it. More than once, she had been told that she was beautiful. But weren’t those Voldemort’s eyes? Wasn’t that Tom Riddle’s nose arch? She had none of Lily’s rainforest moisture, nor any of the daytime beauty of her mother’s. As if to get away from her reflection, she briskly closed the cabinet door and set herself down on a bench away from him. Never yet had she sat close to him during her detentions, as she would once have done.  
The hours passed. At times, she listened to his breathing and, eventually, she came to the last book; it was a textbook. She opened it and read the inner cover: Property of the Half-Blood Prince. Turned one page. Two. She knew the writing immediately - his. It was his book, his amendments to the recipes, his love for Lily, changing the shape of his ‘o’s. He did not notice her reading it, even half an hour later. By then, she had already memorised those invented spells, had already noted the recipe changes. She could hear his seventeen year old voice, could imagine it saying her name. Perhaps then, if he had met her at school, he might have loved her instead. Perhaps if she wasn’t the Dark Lord’s daughter… Lucia closed the book as he looked up at her. No.  
No, no, no.  
It was always Lily.  
“That’s enough for tonight, Black. Leave the books in my cupboard and return to your dormitory.” But even as he spoke, he could tell there was something upturned in her eyes, some emotion capsizing her - he could feel the foam of it against him. She was so beautiful in that moment that he had to look away. There was a forceful sensation in the palm of his hands, in the width of his throat, in the rise and fall of his ribcage. Yet he would not acknowledge that it had anything to do with the girl before him who was so obviously becoming a woman.

Weekend Quidditch match. The teams mounted their brooms as the commentator’s voice sounded in the stadium. Taylor and Abigail were next to Lucia, commenting on Luna Lovegood’s hat. The snitch was released and the seekers took off. Lucia was watching Ginny Weasley; she laughed with her friends as a bludger flew unnervingly close to their heads. And then the match was gone, and all she could see was Voldemort’s murder coloured eyes. The noise too, that megaphone voice and those enthralled inhales, all of it was gone. She gripped her seat, but the others didn't notice - the game was much too engrossing. Then that slithering parseltongue, hissed through the silence. Next, the anger, chambers of it, doors ajar. She stood and pushed out of the stands and down the stairs that she could barely see. She felt inexpressible pain. Stumbling, she fell down the last three steps, aware of nothing but his screams and Potter’s rainforest eyes. She held her ears, stood and hurried out onto the grounds. The sunshine was there, but it was eclipsed behind Tom Riddle’s monstrously surging grave. The pain of rebirth. Agonising first breath.

Snape saw her across the stands, her seagrass hair in the wind, watching the game begin below. He frowned as the seekers readied themselves. There was no Potter playing today, and he was glad of it. Like his father, they said. Lily fell in love with that confident kick off, that arrogant touchdown with a squirming snitch between fingers. The intolerable Hufflepuff captain was waving to the crowd as the players mounted their brooms and the snitch was released. That collective gasp. Ginny Weasley was already above the stands. Snape watched the Gryffindor beater hit a bludger toward Black’s stand. Close. He saw her laugh against Parker. The beater was already chasing another bludger but Snape was no longer watching the game - he was watching Lucia. He noticed that swoon and her glazed over expression. Saw her stand, and he immediately looked round for Dumbledore, remembering only after searching for him that the headmaster was not at school. Immediately Snape stood and hurried past the others, down the stairs and onto the grounds. Across the field, Lucia was stood holding her head. He ran to her.  
“Black.”  
He took her by the shoulders.  
“Stay away from me.” shaking syllables. She could barely see him, yet she knew his voice. It was her favourite voice. “Please stay away…”  
“Focus your mind.” he could feel her trembling hair against his knuckles. Then the pain. He pulled his hands away, then took hold of her again. “Focus not on what you are seeing, but on keeping him out.”  
“There’s so much darkness. So much agony.” and she struggled to free herself from him.  
“Ignore it. Every emotion that he is pulling from you, guard it.”  
But she was still trying to release herself from his hands. “Please, Professor.”  
The pain was halving him, yet he didn't relinquish his hold on her. “Guard your mind, Black!”  
“Don’t you see I can’t?” and her voice was alight now, “I can't do it.”  
His head was reeling, his hands still over her arms. “You can. Focus on my voice. Listen to my voice. I want you to think of the first potion that you made with me. It was a Kindling potion, dark blue, I remember the colour on your hands…”  
“Professor, please-”  
“It was seven o’clock. You were early, but you waited outside my door until the exact time.”  
“He’ll learn about it.”  
“You put your bag on the back table, too nervous to approach my desk. I told you to get out your cauldron, and you had set it up before I turned around.”  
She rested her head against his chest.   
“You almost added too many grams of Beetle heart. I had to stop you, remember?”  
“I remember.” her mouth barely moved. The pain in his palms began to subside.   
“It overflowed slightly and spotted your textbook. You didn’t notice until you’d rested your hand on it. I had to use a cleansing charm on your knuckles to stop the potion from burning you.”  
“I felt really stupid.” she murmured.   
“I never considered you stupid.” his voice was almost as quiet. “You have always been talented and hardworking.”  
There was a cheer from the stadium. For Lucia, the world was beginning to colour back in; she could see Snape’s lunar chest, waxing and waning before her. Her favourite person. She looked up at him. His face was recovering, his eyes supernovaing with something unrecognisable.  
“Professor…” she could feel his heartbeat against her cheek.  
“What is it?”  
“Professor.”  
This time his voice was slightly impatient. “What?”  
“I love you.”  
There was another cheer from the stadium. Light fell against her through the wings of a bumblebee. She looked into his eyes and, when he didn’t respond, leaned back. “I love you.”  
But there was no preservative - the words were dead when they reached him. She said something else, but it was so delicate, so weightless, that it was blown away.  
Only one word survived through everything.  
“Lily.”  
“Enough.” he said, his hand rising to his face. The galaxy was making him motion sick. “Enough.”  
The voice of the commentator shook the spore speckled vacuum between them. He stepped away from her.  
“Your love is wasted.”  
Lucia could not help trembling. A moment passed. The universe sighed.  
“Did you think I would return your feelings?”  
“I…”  
“You do realise that you are a mere child?”  
Her eyes fell from him.  
“In the future-”  
“Lucia Black,” he said her name in his most scathing voice. “There is not one future in which I would ever fall in love with you. I repeat: Your love is wasted.”  
Cheers from the stadium signalled the end of the match. Lucia was still, but Snape could feel the world reel as her soul pulled away from him. After a few moments, she nodded, then turned away from him and moved toward the castle, holding both her breath and her tears, which would fall only when she was alone in her dormitory. Even now, as she was moving away from him, he could call after her, he could reach her sandtimer silhouette through the pollenated air. But before he could recover himself, she had disappeared into the castle. Snape was left gazing at the ground with an expression that even his most careful occlumency would not have hidden.

He did not return to the Quidditch match, but went directly to his quarters. Had he passed any students, they would certainly have noticed the disoriented movements of the potions professor who was usually so controlled. He closed his door behind him manually, then leaned against it with his right shoulder. From his bedroom, clock ticks woodpeckered the silence. Eventually, he came away from the door and walked to a mirror in the bathroom - the only one he owned. He did not turn on the lights immediately, but observed his reflection in the darkness. Impossible. Impossible, and yet, she had said it. The first, the only… With a sweating hand he groped for the light switch, and regarded his face in the mirror.  
He remembered the shape of her mouth as he looked at his own. Love, she had said. Love! And what had he replied? He covered his lips and his body convulsed.

In the weeks that followed, Lucia Black did her best to maintain her decorum around the potions professor. In their small NEWT classes, she still sat at the front, but kept her eyes on her notes or on her concoctions and never raised her hand to answer questions. At meal times she sat and conversed with a kind of fervour, smiling and laughing with her cupid’s arrow vivacity. She gave no indication of her constant struggle against the Dark Lord, which had been growing more intense in Dumbledore’s absence from the school. For his part, the potions professor successfully feigned indifference toward her — an indifference so plausible that he himself believed it.


	23. Chapter 23

Snape was not the first to hear about the intimacy between Lucia Black and a Gryffindor boy called Ryan Gambon; he learned of it from a pair of Hufflepuff girls on his way to the Great Hall. Usually, he was an accomplished and discreet listener, but he turned to the pair with such incredulity in his expression that he had to use his full command as a teacher to have them explain everything they knew: the night prior, Lucia Black had slept with Gambon in the second floor bathroom, as witnessed by several Hufflepuff girls. Dumbledore being absent from the school, Snape immediately went to McGonagall and informed her of Gambon’s actions. He was on his way to Flitwick when he encountered Lucia in the corridor, walking with her friends. Upon seeing him, said friends looked away while Lucia bowed more humbly than usual without raising her head again. But he did not walk past as expected.  
“Ah, Miss Black.” There was a toxic sweetness to his voice that made her grip her bag more tightly. “Just the student I was looking for.”  
“Good morning, Professor.” but she did not look up at him.  
“Your friends may continue to the Great Hall unaccompanied by you, Miss Black. You will be coming with me.”  
There was a moment of silence in which he turned to each of them with such dangerous authority that they left without speaking.  
“Come.”  
He began to walk, and only when he was five paces away did she follow. Had he looked back at her, he would not have liked what he saw.  
When he reached his office door, he held it open for her. She passed him with such care that even their robes did not touch. With much less gentleness than he had opened the door, he slammed it closed.  
“Disgusting.”  
He said it to her back as he circled around her to his desk and enjoyed the way she flinched.  
“Shameful, absurd, repugnant — how could you ever even think to do such a thing?” and he watched as her expression blundered. “Well?”  
“I— I don’t understand…”  
When he didn’t respond, she clenched her hands together.  
“Are you talking about… when I…”  
“Miss Black,” There was mockery in the way he spoke, “You can’t possibly tell me that you don’t acknowledge the liberty you have taken.” his voice seemed to traverse rocks. Lucia swallowed and tried to keep her hands still.  
“It was abhorrent — abhorrent to behave in such a way, in such a place.”  
He understood from her neck that she was trying not to move.  
“You do not love me. You do not feel any affection for me at all — if you did, you would not have acted as you did. You—” here he had to pause, to take hold of the table and remind himself of the feel of something level. “You should be ashamed beyond compare of your yourself and your declaration, so crass and so false.”  
They were noiseless tears, yet this did not diminish their abandon. Lucia cried with an almost motionless fervour.  
“Did you not think that it would be seen?”  
“I—” she swallowed “I was certain nobody was there.”  
“Of course people were there — this is a school!”  
“S—” but her tears had a chokehold that took her a moment to recover from, “I’m so sorry.”  
“I don’t want an apology from a disgrace like you. If I could remove you from this school, I would.”  
Here Lucia covered her face. There was a knock at the door.  
“What?”  
“We’ve brought her, as you requested, Professor.”  
“Brought who?”  
“Miss Black.”  
Snape stormed to the door, “Don’t be ridiculous,” he waved it open, “Black is already—”  
Yet before him stood three Slytherin students and, between them, Lucia Black. Snape stumbled backward and looked toward the girl crying at his desk. Then he turned back toward the other students and took hold of the doorframe, trying to remember what he had said.  
“Samson, go and fetch Professor McGonagall. You—” he regarded the three of them, “—In my office.”  
They complied. When the girl being brought with the Slytherins saw the other by the desk, she began to fidget.  
“Care to explain?” he said it with his arms folded, eyeing one Lucia then the other. The Lucia by the desk regarded her double.  
“What it is…” the girl between the Slytherins began to rock slightly, “You see…”  
“Polyjuice Potion?” said the girl at his desk. Despite the soundless motion of her tears, her voice was equanimous.  
“What?” Snape turned to the Lucia at his desk, then back to the other, “Well?”  
It would have taken a more patient man than Snape to wait for the girl between the Slytherin students to say what she was trying to say. After four false starts, he went to his potion cabinet, took down a vial, decanted it into two glasses, and handed one to each of them.  
“Drink.”  
The girl at his desk did so, but the other looked at the potion in her hands and began to sob. There was a knock at the door.  
“Come in.”   
McGonagall entered the room, less perturbed by the two Lucias than Snape had been.  
“Drink.” he repeated, as McGonagall stood beside him. Each of the Slytherin students had stepped away slightly.  
“A revealing potion, Severus?” McGonagall asked, “I spoke to Gambon. Let’s see if the stories match up, shall we? He says that he was certain his intimate actions concerned Miss Black, and he didn’t seem particularly concerned with the consequences.”  
“Intimate actions, professor?”  
Both professors turned to the Lucia at the desk.  
“Of a prohibited nature, Miss Black.” Professor McGonagall said. Here Lucia looked at Snape.  
“Prohibited…” she seemed to understand many things at once.  
“Where were you yesterday, Miss Black?”  
“In the library until about ten. I checked out Cartney’s book on healing charms, then went to my dormitory.”  
“Right. I’ll check that in a moment.” McGonagall turned to the other girl, “How about you?”  
Perhaps it was the gentleness of McGonagall’s voice that finally caused the girl to begin, and perhaps it was the arsenic in Snape’s glare that made her abandon the lies and tell of her courtship with Gambon. Emboldened by her confession, she drank the potion, and a few minutes later, she returned to being the pigtailed seventh year, Baker. McGonagall was the one who did the cross-examining, and the more questions she asked, the more still Snape became, until Baker was too afraid to look at him.  
“What I don’t understand is why on earth you needed to masquerade as Black.” McGonagall said.  
“Because he didn’t like me. He likes… he likes her.”  
“And yet, you performed the act where you could be seen and found out.”  
“I wasn’t thinking.”  
“That much is evident.” It was the first time Snape had spoken, and even McGonagall was taken aback by the loathing in his voice, “You gave no thought at all to the person you were impersonating. You very nearly ruined her.”  
“I…”  
“The damage you could have caused. All for a childish, desperate association.” he finally unfolded his arms, “You could never be sorry enough for such sickening behaviour. Why, if I—”  
McGonall interrupted him by placing her hand on his arm, “I think it’s best if I take Miss Baker to my office, Severus.” she moved to the door, “Come on, Miss Baker, let’s get you cleaned up. We’ll discuss your punishment after that. Severus, I trust I can leave Miss Black in your care? I imagine she is feeling quite overwhelmed.”  
“…Certainly.”  
“You two, come with me. I’ll walk you back to your common room.”  
The door closed; Snape had not yet glanced at the girl he was now alone with, but there was the sound of rustling.  
“Leaving, Black?”  
“Yes.”  
Still, he faced the potion cabinet. He heard her stand. Heard her take up her bag. Only when she was beside him did he speak.  
“Are you alright?”  
It was said in his quietest voice. Somehow, he felt her become still.  
“Yes.”  
A not untruth, but not a truth either. He turned to her and was surprised to see her closer than he expected. So close he could touch her, if he wanted.  
“Earlier…” he eyed her cheeks, “I was speaking about the actions I thought you’d performed with Gambon. Since you weren’t aware of the accusation, I realise that it might have sounded as if I was speaking about…”  
He waited for her to save him from continuing. But she didn’t.  
“I was not speaking of your confession, Lucia. There was nothing shameful in that…”  
The way her eyes went to him almost made him forgetful. In it, unhidden, lay all her affection, her longing, her wishes. All he had to do was touch that recovering cheek, and take. Had she spoken, had she told him, then, once more, that she loved him, he might have experienced a desire for her that he would not have been able to manage. He may even have been able, for a moment, to forget Lily, Voldemort, and Lucia’s age in the onslaught of this desire. Her silence lent him enough self awareness to turn aside and, as she saw the way his gaze left her, she thought she heard Lily calling him away. Her hand went to her hair.  
“Thank you for saying that, Professor. I will try not to trouble you again.”  
And she was gone.


	24. Chapter 24

It was an accident that Lucia Black learned of the capture of her cousin Sirius. At six o’clock on June the eighteenth, most of the students were in the Great Hall, eating lunch under a passionfruit sunset. Lucia was making her way to the kitchens in order to source her dinner there. For some weeks, she had been taking her meals to a disused classroom, where she would sit alone at a desk by the window, overlooking the grounds.  
The frenzied footsteps of four students sounded as she walked under the geometric lines of the sunset in the courtyard. Lucia stopped walking.  
“I recon they’ve gone to the forest.” It was the voice of Ronald Weasley.  
“Do you think there really is a secret weapon?” A voice buffeted by breathlessness.  
“Don’t be stupid Neville, they just didn’t want Umbridge to find out about Sirius being held captive.” Ginny Weasley.  
“Do you really believe that You Know Who has him in the department of mysteries?”  
“Yeah.”  
They rounded a corner, out of earshot. Lucia maintained her stillness for another moment, then she turned and ran in a different direction. Her destination was Snape’s office, but her courage seemed to outrun her. In the dungeons, she halted, her breath in ribbons. Instead of going to him, she turned back and ran to the Headmaster’s office. Once she’d confounded the members of the Inquisitorial Squad, she spoke the password and hurried up the spiral staircase. It took the portraits some time before they would listen to her, but after convincing Phineas to check on Sirius, then to inform him of what had happened, the other portraits began to contact the rest of the Order. This done, she turned to the room. Upon seeing her grandfather’s empty chair, Lucia seemed to become immobilised anew. The surfaces, so cramped with Dumbledore, had a loneliness to them that reminded her of herself. Evening would have darkened the office if not for the self-lighting candles - something was keeping Lucia motionless. The portraits could not know what she was thinking as stared at the space above her Grandfather's chair, but they would tell Dumbledore later about the way she was standing, her hands together and her breath the only source of life. Only once the sun had set did Lucia search for floo powder. She travelled to the ministry through Dumbledore’s fireplace.

The department of mysteries didn’t seem to hold answers for Lucia. Tanks of curious objects whispered no secrets that would help her know what to do if she met her father. Further, she didn’t have Harry’s furious disregard of the consequences of his actions — she knew that to save him would be to set herself against Voldemort, and she understood that this would be an irredeemable thing. So she moved through the spinning doors as one might move through a lie, and she searched for Harry as one might search for truth.  
It was the massive sound of breaking glass led her closer to where Harry was. As she crept between shelves of objects, she conjured a tiny light, with the intention of having it direct her to Harry.  
There was a thump behind her. She turned to the darkness, then back to the shelving. Something flashed over the shoulders of glass vials. Her body flicked around. With the light still circling over her shoulders, she used a revealing charm. Three people were in the room with her. She created a figure of herself and sent it forward. As it stepped into the darkness, it was met with a stunning charm. This charm passed through the form and hit the shelf to her right.  
There was no tremor in Lucia as she snuck back along the shelves, toward the door she had entered through. She deflected two stunning curses and ran. There was an explosion. Objects began to fall from the shelves. Death Eaters mined the rows, their cloaks thumping under the open handed light of falling objects. Lucia used a variation of the fiendfyre spell to disperse them, disarmed the death eater to her left, then raised her wand above her head and transfigured countless falling objects into doves.  
The Dark Lord stepped between her and the door. Doves flitted between them like inverted commas for all that couldn't be said. Behind them, Lucia’s fiendfyre burned; it changed the colour of the face that she had seen so many times in her grandfather’s pensive.  
“Lucia…” Voldemort’s voice had a quietness that surprised her. “I should have known you would surprise me.”  
He moved toward her with an uncanny expression. “Similar, but not exactly, like your mother.”  
To their left, the screaming of a Death Eater sounded. Potter was in the distance somewhere, beyond her help.  
“You have her beauty.” Voldemort said, his wand idle in the gap between his thumb and forefinger. “That expression is unmistakably hers, and yet I see myself in you…”  
Lucia said nothing. Her heartbeat was exploring the air, her wand was at his chest.  
“It’s clear that you’re not a friend of Potter’s. You came here alone, but why?” his eyes did not leave her face, “To see me? To save Sirius?” he frowned, “No… I should have known better to think that you’d be as foolish as Potter…” his lips moved into something like a smile, “Ah, you were worried that I would harm the boy. Severus was right when he said you were loyal to Dumbledore. Look how he has poisoned you against me. It’s only expected that you would be weary. Come closer, Lucia, I have no reason to harm my only child.”  
Lucia remained still.  
“You have seen, have you not, what they did to your mother? You have felt the endless pain I endured because of Harry Potter. Tell me, did it not move you?”  
“It was agony.” She did not quite have the anger in her face that he’d expected. Her expression, muddied with conflict, was more encouraging than he could have hoped for. He apparated behind her. Before she could turn, his hands were on hers.  
“That old fool has done so much damage.” he said, close to her face. “You have been taught nothing. Not about your mother, not about your father. He taught you to fear, though, that much is clear. To fear me and, therefore, to fear yourself.”  
A dove landed on his arm. He glanced at it.  
“Immobulus.” Lucia murmured. It affected him for only an instant, but it was long enough for her to apparate to the other end of the room. She sprinted down the corridors to Potter, to keep him safe, to reach him before her father did. Still, she could feel those blood smeared fingerprints on her mind. When she reached the room with the archway, she was out of breath. While inhaling the darkness, she saw the violent firework colours of duels. Across the room, Sirius Black was hit by the killing curse of Bellatrix. Time became unrecognisable. Her uncle fell through the veil. Potter ran after Bellatrix; Lucia sprinted after them both. The tears were a byproduct. She ran past the statue, toward the fighting, cursing another wizard who was aiming for Potter. She reached Dumbledore before she reached Harry. It took only one look from him for her to cease her pursuit. She hid in an alcove and fell to her knees with scaly breaths, trying to exhale Voldemort’s venom. When she closed her eyes, she could still hear the skirmish between her father and her grandfather, but she could only see her mother.

Back at Hogwarts. She didn't cry for Sirius immediately. There was too much, and she felt it all while Dumbledore dismissed them. Reluctantly, she visited Madam Pomfrey with the others. They were talking weakly. She was watching the corridor move, watching the virulent shadows. Student voices melted into the sound of Sirius disappearing. Curtains undulated into the sight of her mother disappearing. The nurse looked her over. And then she saw Snape. Lucia couldn't look at him, so watched the swab marshmallowing over her neck instead. Then the nurse was finished and Snape’s hand was over her wrist, his fingertips slipping down to her palm. She couldn't help but compare the grip to Voldemort’s. He pulled her away, out into the darkness. She did not fight him, but could only look at the loose stitching on his cloak hem. The door closed. His office, with ancient bricks. His space, his particles, his atoms. She closed her eyes against it. All of it, everything, was too much.  
“What possessed you?” his hands struck the wall on either side of her head, “What on earth possessed you?”  
He looked into her eyes and felt the ocean swell of her emotions erode his self control.  
“I expect that kind of imbecility from Potter,” his hands were over her wrists now. “But from you? Did you want to go to him?”  
“No, sir,” she was trying to hide herself.  
“Did you honestly believe Potter’s ridiculous assertion that Sirius was held captive?”  
“No.”  
“Then why?” his voice was fracturing.  
“Potter went. I followed to keep him safe.”  
“You’re not even close to Potter!”  
She couldn't look at him. “It’s not that.” in a gusty voice. “I just…”  
“What?”  
“I know why you’re working with the Dark Lord.” she closed her eyes, “I know why my Grandpa is working so hard with the Order. You want to keep Potter safe.”  
He faltered. Her body before him, her mountainous breath.  
“I wasn’t happy when I saw my father.” She could see Snape’s throat move as he swallowed. “I was terrified.”  
Slowly, yet without thinking about what he was doing, Snape brought his fingers to her face.  
“What did he do?”  
Tears curved over her cheeks, onto his fingertips. “He understood me.”  
This startled him. His fingers retained a forgetful pressure on her cheek.  
“The Dark Lord is good at identifying what motivates people. He does it to achieve his ends.”  
She looked up at him and, instead of replying, loosened her occlumency for the first time since she had learned to do so. Snape felt the lapping of her mind, but did not understand the courage that she showed in letting him.  
As the waves became sound, Snape almost brought his fingers to her lips. But his hand halted mid-motion. He stepped away from her, scarcely able to breathe.  
“You could not have understood him, nor should you want to. The Dark Lord’s motives do not need understanding — He wants power and life only.”  
“Not only.”  
“I will not have this conversation with you.” he came further away from her, as if each thought was washing him onto the shore. Lucia nodded, then gave him a timid bow and turned to let herself out of his office. It took her a moment to take hold of the door handle, but even so she did not look back at him. He stood grasping the buttons along his chest, trying to expel her water from his lungs.

June was in the light that touched the outward folds of her cloak, the irregular riverbank of her chest and the newborn exhaustion in her eyes. In her bag was a book of Snape’s. The handwriting of his, clenchedfisted and abundant, was both precious and comforting. As she approached the great hall, she looked out at the students. It appeared to her, for the first time in her life that their smiles were percentiles.  
Lunch was going on. Lucia sat herself at the Ravenclaw table and took out a book from her bag. As she did so, her hand touched the volume Snape had once lent her. She thought of the span of his hand against the spine, the height of his fingers on his quill as he made his notes. It was strange that his handwriting was so cramped and uncontrolled when he was able to compose himself so completely. There was a sensation against her shoulder and she looked up. Harry Potter was standing beside her, the space under his eyes showing that he had spent as much time crying throughout the night as she had.  
“Harry.” There was so much trapped in the circle of the ‘a’. She came away from her bag.  
“Hi Lucia.” he made a half movement toward the bench. “Look, I just… for yesterday - Thanks. I heard that you went to the Department of Mysteries.”  
Lucia watched the rainforest canopy of his eyes, then looked down at her hands and smiled. “I don't deserve your thanks Harry.”  
“Well, I’m giving it to you anyway.” he said, crushing his embarrassment in the upward movement of his shoulders.  
“You are very kind.” Lucia was still looking at the molehills of her knuckles. There was a laugh from the Slytherin table. After watching the quiver on the surface of her pumpkin juice for a moment, Harry chopped up the conversation with the nodding motion of his head. As he made to leave, Lucia reached out to him.  
“If you ever need me Harry, if you ever find yourself in a situation where you could use my help, you only have to come to me. I’ll do everything I can for you.” she said, releasing his sleeve and giving him her unspeakably beautiful smile.


	25. Chapter 25

The summer of Lucia’s seventh year was spent with her uncle Aberforth where, in between practising magic and potions, she helped with the running of the bar. It was something that Aberforth had requested, and only because he had never seen his niece so listless before. A disbeliever in the solitude of studying, Aberforth had insisted that she assist him and she had unquestioningly obliged. However, she did not enjoy it. Nor did the work stop the mushroom cloud of emotions that she was becoming better and better at concealing with occlumency. Any time that she could get away from the bar, she spent alone, reading obscure and ancient texts that many wizards never looked at in a lifetime. She also began experimenting with new concoctions and magic and, on one occasion, Aberforth had seen her with a book about such dark magic that he had not slept at all that night, and could not bring himself to tell his brother about it.  
Only once did Lucia see her grandfather over the summer.

It was a Tuesday evening. Epileptic candlelight was drawing circles on the wooden tables and witches and wizards were talking with tankards in their hands. Knees were against walls, feet on stool legs. Behind the bar, Lucia was demonstrating a spell to those nearest to her, her neptunian beauty beaching them as she moved her arms.  
“Merlin’s beard.” Slughorn said it when Albus was already meters into the pub. The headmaster looked over his shoulder with a monkey tail smile.  
“Lucia.” he called. His niece abandoned the spell immediately and, excusing herself, hurried to her grandfather and took his hands.  
“I’ve missed you so much.” she said, lifting those hands to her chest. It was then that she noticed the charcoal bloom over his knuckles. Her look at him had in it a meteor crash, yet she composed herself so swiftly that Slughorn missed it.  
“Lucia, allow me to introduce you to Professor Horace Slughorn.” Dumbledore said, easing his hands away from hers and indicating the walrus man beside him. Lucia gave the professor her most decorous smile.  
“Very nice to meet you, professor.” she bowed slightly and her hair champaigned over her shoulders.  
“No, no, the pleasure is mine.” Slughorn grin was deft. “I hear you are a very skilled young witch.”  
“I am not so brilliant, sir.” the small movement of her shoulders was depreciating. “May I get you a drink?”  
There was the sound of liquored laughter from across the room. Slughorn felt his moustache before answering. “Yes, yes, if you would.”  
“A firewhisky, sir?”  
Slughorn started.  
“Forgive the intrusion, sir.” Lucia’s clam blue robes creased as she brought her hands together. “I am still learning to control it. Please excuse me for a moment.”  
There was another laugh, this time from a wizard to their left. As Lucia attended to a customer, Dumbledore placed his hand on Slughorn’s back and led him to the bar.  
“A legilimens?” Slughorn whispered it.  
“An exposing one.” Dumbledore nodded to his brother and sat himself on a stool. There was a ring of butterbeer foam on the coaster closest to his elbow. He vanquished it wandlessly.  
Then Slughorn gripped his arm.  
“You mentioned that she was like her mother, Claudia.” he murmured, looking not at Dumbledore but at the bottles of whiskey behind the counter. “That you don’t know her father.”  
“I did.”  
“You know, Albus, I have only just met her.”  
“Of course.” Dumbledore watched the candlelight against Slughorn’s contracted eyebrows.  
“Perhaps you will think me mad. It’s just that… I can’t help but feel she is more like… well, the most unlikely of souls, I’ll admit…”  
“Who does she remind you of, Horace?”  
Across the bar, Aberforth was arguing with a patron; Dumbledore could see the exchange behind the perplexity of Slughorn’s face.  
“Tom Riddle.”  
Their drinks appeared before them. Lucia came to them a moment later, holding a glass of water for herself with both hands.  
“Lucia, Slughorn is going to be the new potions professor at Hogwarts this year.” Dumbledore said, taking up his own drink.  
“And Professor Snape?” she said it too swiftly. A reef colour starfished over her cheeks as she quickly took a sip of her water.  
“He will be teaching defence against the dark arts.” Dumbledore removed wine droplets from his moustache with his bottom lip. Both men were watching her carefully.  
“I see…” she smiled, then gave Slughorn her marooning eyes. “I’m very much looking forward to being in your class, professor.”

Lucia’s final year at Hogwarts started on the grey expanse of owl wings. Having not journeyed to school via the Hogwarts express, she was greeted by her friends at the welcoming feast. Snape entered the hall and stopped with raised eyebrows before the gathering, which was blocking his way to the staff table. An overzealous Brian Stonner took Lucia by the hands and attempted to pull her into an embrace. Lucia pulled away with such suddenness that she lost her balance and fell against the potions professor. The group hushed. Slytherins at the other side of the hall were jeering at Ron Weasley.  
“My apologies, professor.” Lucia said, coming away from him without looking at him. The scent of jasmine and orange blossom bullet holed him.  
“Stonner and Black,” Snape gave them both his most disparaging look, “Next time you feel like indulging in such crass flirtations, I suggest you do so in private. Ten points from both of your houses for forcing me to witness such vulgarity.”  
He curtly stepped past them then glided to the staff table, some imprecise emotion incising his chest. The smell of orange groves settled over his dinner plate and he very nearly took off his cloak in order to rid himself of it. Lucia sat down immediately at the table and covered the colour that had marmaladed onto her face with her hands.

Dumbledore’s office on the first day of term. Nine-thirty. Pluto was magnified in the telescope, and its marbled colours were halving Snape as he paced the room.  
“I am doing my best, headmaster.” he said, pulling his sleeves over his knuckles.  
“That I know, Severus, but we have such little time. If we-”  
There was a thump as the door was pushed open. Both men looked to the doorway to see Lucia, her cloak tiding with her breath and her expression rapidly changing current.  
“Forgive me, I should have knocked.” she bowed and turned to leave.  
“No, no, there is no need for you to leave, Lucia.” Dumbledore’s voice was reaching out. “Professor Snape was just on his way to the dungeons.”  
Seeing the obvious disgruntlement on Snape’s face, Lucia shook her head, “It’s okay, I didn’t mean to intrude.”  
“You are not intruding, Lucia. Please.” Dumbledore rose slightly from his chair, holding out a ruined hand to her. “Please.”  
Snape watched as she regarded her grandfather. Years later, he would still be able to see the embers of the urgent, volcanic distress which was flickering in her eyes. The embers set his chest alight and each breath he took burgeoned the fire.  
“I am leaving, headmaster.” he said, conscious of the searing in his stomach as she turned to him. He wanted to reach over and touch those burning cheeks of hers.  
“Thank you, Severus.” Dumbledore said.  
He nodded, his vision still flaming even when he had looked away from her. By the time he left the room, his self control was ashen. He closed the office door, but instead of leaving, he lingered at the top of the stairs. Their voices came to him immediately.  
“Your hand, Grandpa!”  
“It is nothing serious.”  
“Liar.” Never before had Snape heard her voice ablaze. “Please don’t lie to me, I know the curse. You’ve done something to contain it, but, but-”  
“It is not for you to worry about.”  
“Not for-” there was a pause. Snape was completely still.  
“There are worse things than death, Lucia.”  
“I’ll find a counter curse, there must be a way-”  
“Lucia.”  
“You’ve used a balancing draught to contain it. Perhaps if I… if I…”  
“Lucia.”  
“It will take some time, maybe a year, but-”  
“Lucia.”  
Another pause. The sound of Fawkes shifting on his perch echoed in the chasm. Snape thought that he could hear Lucia’s footsteps.  
“You can’t die, Grandpa.”  
“I don’t fear death.”  
“I do.” it was a catastrophic voice. The sound of her tears, usually so silent, struggled against the door. “What will I do without you? How can I possibly…”  
“Lucia.” Dumbledore’s voice was weak, “I need you to be courageous.”  
Snape could hear his own breathing in the moment that passed.  
“For you I will do anything, Grandpa. If you ask it of me, I will show you all the courage I possess, but…” Her robes made a freshwater sound as she knelt beside him. Snape did not hear what she said next.  
“It is for your sake that I want your courage, Lucia.”  
“Courage is of no use to me. It’s you that I need.”  
“You will need it. Lucia, when I am gone he will reach out to you.”  
“He is already reaching.” she said it dismissively.  
“And already you are struggling. I know that you have been exploring dark magic. I know you have been performing even spells that most dark wizards would never attempt.”  
There was a pine needle silence. Even the portraits were still.  
“You think I will go to him?”  
Snape dared not move.  
“I know you are not your father, Lucia.”  
“And yet you think I would throw away all the love you have shown me… you think that… like him…”  
“He will torment you. He will not rest until you are beside him.”  
“I’m not afraid of him. Yes, I’ve been looking at Dark Magic. I’ve seen spells so terrible I couldn’t have ever imagined them. I’ve cast hexes that I know would make you repugnant. But why? Why do you think I’ve been practising such dark magic, Grandpa?”  
There was a noise at the bottom of the stairs. Snape started. The voices in the office silenced. For an almost unbearable moment, Snape remained still. It was quite possible that Dumbledore had used the homenum revelio charm and seen him. But then the ghosting sound of Lucia’s voice sounded. Still undecided, Snape noiselessly descended the stairs. That voice of hers seemed to parch him as he stepped out into the deserted corridor.

Snape couldn’t help but look for her during dinner. The space that she usually occupied on the Ravenclaw table was taken up by a first year and, while her friends were all present, it seemed to Snape that there was a draught in that wave of blue ties. Slughorn was sat beside him, telling a joke about Goblins that Flitwick was listening to with raised eyebrows. All of a sudden, Snape became aware that at the end of the year he would, most likely, never see Lucia again. He dropped his fork and it tumbled onto Slughorn’s already cleared starter plate.  
“Merlin’s beard, Severus. Steady on.”  
“Sorry.” he recovered his fork and moved to wipe it with his napkin.  
Since when? Since when had her profile become so important? Snape impaled his turkey then put down his cutlery. The noise of students was aching in its ceaselessness. He wanted the silence with her voice underneath. Then, almost by accident, he remembered the flaming white of Lily. His throat tightened. Beside him, Slughorn spluttered on his wine in response to a joke of Hagrid’s.   
Lily Evans, beautiful Lily Evans - she had in the sunshine of her body everything that mattered in the universe. Yet it was an everything with a finger on its lips. He felt Minerva’s laugh buffet him. Countless times he had seen Lily laughing, the hand of James Potter on her cheek, in her hair, on on her lips. Surely she had laughed at their dinner table, had laughed when they visited Potter’s family, had laughed when Harry opened his Christmas presents. Some sort of vertigo began to dizzy him. When was the last time he had seen Lucia laugh?  
He stood and his napkin fell onto the floor. Sprout glanced at him, but her conversation continued. Snape bent to pick it up, then left it on his plate and hurried out of the hall. In the corridor, he stopped before beginning toward the library. That was where she usually was, wasn't it? He grimaced, ascending the moving staircases two at a time. After a few minutes, he was in the mellow, full-bodied silence of the library. With a nod at Madam Pince, he searched the room, even moving into the restricted section to which she would undoubtedly have access. As he strode between the shelves, he thought he heard the enduring echo of her voice. But she was not there - he could not find her. Feeling the calamity of his foolishness, he left the library.


	26. Chapter 26

Snape didn’t see Lucia again until their defence against dark arts class. She came in late, her hair tied back and a look of exhaustion on her face that even the potions she had applied could not conceal.  
“You’re late.” Snape tapped his writing chalk on his desk as she moved to an empty seat.  
“I’m very sorry, Professor.” she did not sit down and, after a moment, he realised she was waiting for him to permit her to do so. Marcus Belby had turned completely around in his chair to look at her.  
“Five points from Ravenclaw for your tardiness. Sit down.” Snape turned his back on her and listened to the arthritic sound of her chair as she pulled it out. He began writing spells on the board.  
“You will be practising these counter curses today. I’ll give you five minutes to consult your textbooks so you can tell me when and why they might be used before I demonstrate them to you. Off you go.”  
There was the ancient sound of unfurling paper. Snape put his hands in his pockets and began to circle the room. While standing beside McLaggen, he glanced over at Lucia, whose textbook was closed and who was gazing at his whiteboard.  
“Black, I want you to find me three distinct spells for each counter curse.”  
From her flinch he could tell that she had been thinking of something disparate from the lesson. Yet she quickly nodded and opened her textbook. As she dipped her head over the pages, a strand of hair fell over her neck. Belby was looking toward her.  
“Concentrate on your own textbook, Mr Belby.” his voice was slick with contemptuousness. “Unless, of course, it is your intention to suffer from the effects of a curse you can’t counter.” Belby blushed and returned his attention to his book. Having looked over each student Snape finally, almost reluctantly, went to Lucia. She was making notes with her usual studiousness, her quill tip flitting against her cheek. Her handwriting was beautiful. He remarked it a moment before noticing that she was not using her writing hand.   
“Time.” he called, moving to the front of the classroom with an uncomfortable emotion in his chest.  
“Miss Chang, against what would I use the first charm?”  
“Uh…” Cho looked back at her notes. “I think maybe against a stupification spell.”  
“Not its most common use, but an acceptable answer. McLaggen, the second curse, please.”  
“It’s used against any spell which is trying to draw blood.”  
“Good, though I would amend ‘draw blood’ to ‘open a wound’.” Snape drew his wand. “The third?”  
No one put up their hand. Although he was not looking directly at her, he knew that Lucia was watching him.  
“Mr Taylor?”  
“I didn’t get that far, sir.”  
“Miss Simson?”  
The girl shrugged.  
“Black?”  
“One would most commonly use it against disorienting charms, professor.”  
“Another.”  
“It could be employed against the obliviate curse.”  
“Another.”  
“The imperious curse, but only when used by a witch of wizard of substantial skill.”  
Snape tapped his wand against his index finger before beginning to demonstrate each counter curse, explaining the steps with a care he had not shown in his potions class. Then he placed the students into partners and had them practise the spells with one another. He had never seen how capable Lucia was at defence against the dark arts, but he quickly established that she was working well beyond the level of most experienced duellers. Every curse sent at her she could counter, both wandlessly and wordlessly, and he had a suspicion that she was using legilimency to predict her partner’s movements. He moved through the room, gave McLaggen advice on his wand movement, then returned to Lucia.  
“I want you to use your wand this time.” he said, standing behind her, his cloak undulating even after he had stilled.  
“As you wish, Professor.” she raised her wand toward Simson.  
“The other hand, Black. Your wand hand.”  
Immediately, he noticed the dusty colour that unsettled her cheeks. She changed hands. With a frown, Snape observed her trembling wrist and the mushroom colour along her fingers.   
“That’s enough.” he said, “You will stay back after class, Black.” then he addressed the rest of the class. “Seven more minutes of practice before we demonstrate.”

“Out, Belby.” he said, flicking his hand at the boy who lingering in his doorway, “If you are still there when Miss Black leaves, you’ll be spending time with me in detention.” The door slammed shut before the boy had fully left the room. From the corridor outside, the sound of student laughter sounded.   
“I’ll make this quick.” Snape leaned on the desk before her, his arms folded. “Does the headmaster know that your hand is cursed?”  
Lucia’s body seemed to earthquake. She looked into his eyes for the first time in months.   
“No.”  
“Let me see it.” his cloak creased as he reached forward. But she drew away from him with a kind of terror in her face. “Let me see it, Black.”  
“It’s nothing.” she said, clutching her hand to her chest.  
“If it is nothing, let me see it.” he leaned toward her. There was a primrose colour amongst the chaos of her face. It almost halted him. “Give me your hand.”  
Unable to summon her voice, she shook her head. For a moment it seemed that he would let her leave. But then he took hold of her arm and pulled it toward him.  
“Professor-”   
He lifted her sleeve, his fingers searing and his breath in eruptions. But when he saw it, all of that heat seemed to scatter. He looked into her lovely face and there was so much devastation there that he let go of her.  
“How did you do it?” his voice was an obsidian.  
“I…”  
“How?”  
“I cursed myself.”  
There was more laughter outside the room: Peeves was singing a new rhyme.  
“Do you have any idea…” words were still swirling in the pause, “What this curse does?”  
“I know.”  
“It will kill you.”  
“It won’t.” and, although she spoke almost soundlessly, there was no timidity in her voice. “It won’t. I cast it. I can undo it.”  
He took hold of her shoulders. His fingers were trembling.  
“Why? Why do such a thing?”  
There was no need for her to say it: he realised from the desperately beautiful expression on her face.  
“You want to heal him?” he said it almost formally. She nodded, just once. For a long moment, they looked at one another.  
“You will not be able to save him.” and there was pandemonium in his voice.  
“I can do it, Professor. I can. Already, I’ve seen a reversing effect, I just need-”  
“You cannot save him!” Snape seized himself away from her. The universe was moving too fast, too much. Voices in the corridor sounded as Peeves began another verse of his rhyme.  
“Professor…” Lucia reached her cursed hand toward him.  
“You realise I will inform the headmaster.” He glanced over his shoulder at her, his cloak monsooning. “You know what he will say when he hears what you have been doing?”  
“Yes.” Lucia could barely hear her voice.  
“He will tell you that your attempts are worthless, less than worthless.” Snape began to pace, “He will order you to stop.”  
“Still, professor, I won’t stop.”  
Snape’s pacing faltered. “You really think you can save him?”  
“I believe so, sir.”  
All of a sudden, he was upon her, his hands gripping her collar.  
“You are deluded!” He shook her slightly, “What unbridled arrogance! You really think you will succeed where the headmaster could not?! He would save himself if he could!”  
“It’s not like that, Professor,” she turned her head away and, as she did so, her chin moved against his fingers. “But my Grandfather has never worked with dark magic, if I only-”  
Snape let go of her so abruptly that she stumbled and almost fell.  
“Get out.” he said, turning his back on her. There was a tremble in his hands which he tried to still by holding them together. “Out.”  
He heard his door open. The voice of Peeves remained in the room long after she had shut it behind her.

“I don’t believe it.” Dumbledore took off his glasses and placed them on the table in order to cover his eyes with his hands. Snape was ribcaging back and forth.  
“She is not present at any meals, headmaster.” He reached a cabinet, then turned and continued his pacing, “Undoubtedly she is spending all her free time on the endeavour.”  
“Undoubtedly, Severus.” Dumbledore had not yet removed his hands from his eyes. Above them, Phineas Nigellus was frowning. For a few minutes, both men remained silent. Then Dumbledore replaced his glasses and sighed an unsteady part of his soul.  
“I must ask you for a favour.” he watched as the professor came to a standstill.  
“You ask too much.” Snape said, turning to him with an economy of movement that exposed exactly how emotional he was.  
“I know.” and Dumbledore smiled, “When the time comes-”  
“Perform the killing curse.” Snape brandished his hands, “I know it, headmaster.”  
“Not that, Severus, I already have your assurances on that matter.” Dumbledore massaged his forehead, “No, this I ask you as a special request.” He did not continue until Snape had turned completely to him. “Please watch over my granddaughter.”  
“Flitwick is better placed for such a task, no?” The sheet of his voice lumpy with all that it was trying to cover.  
Dumbledore smiled and graciously looked toward a paperweight on his desk. “I feel it is something that I can ask only of you.”  
Snape’s eyes, too, went to that insignificant paperweight. “Very well.” he said it almost dismissively.  
“Severus, I ask this even when I am no longer here.”  
The colours of Dumbledore’s robes flickered in the paperweight - he was leaning toward Snape, his breath clock-ticking.  
“I will do what I can.” Snape set himself down in the chair that he had avoided all evening. “Now and in the future. Though I tell you, headmaster, I have very little influence over her.”  
Dumbledore laughed, almost soundlessly. “She will listen to nobody when it is a matter of saving my life, Severus.” And as suddenly as it had started, the tropical rain of his mirth passed. “You know, she may succeed in finding a way to heal me.”  
“Absurd. It is not possible.”  
“Yes, most likely.” Dumbledore reached out to stroke his Phoenix. But as his fingers touched the bird, his eyes widened and he looked toward Snape, his eyes churning.  
“Is something wrong, headmaster?”  
“Nothing, Severus. Nothing.”


	27. Chapter 27

Slug Party. Snape had thought that she would not attend, so rarely was she seen anywhere except her lessons these days. The party itself was so busy that he had had to push past several laughing warlocks before he eventually saw her across the room. She was with Abigail Parker and the pair of them were talking to Slughorn, who was guffawing at something witty that Lucia had just said. In the distance, the mandolins slowed. Abigail whispered something to Lucia, who smiled and gave her friend a nudge into Elijah Wood. The pair broke away and Lucia was left talking to Slughorn and a pale man who was watching her neck. Snape made his way toward them. It was Lucia who noticed him first; she raised a gloved hand and gave him a smile.  
“Ah. Severus, good to see you.” Slughorn elbowed him jovially without releasing his wine glass. “What a student you’ve left to me! Anything, absolutely anything I give her she can brew to perfection. And as if that wasn’t delightful enough, I’ve just received a vial of never-ending gin as a Christmas present which, I can tell you, is some of the best I’ve ever tried.”  
“I don’t deserve the flattery.” she ran her fingers along her glove. The pale man was still observing the curve of her neck.  
“And unfalteringly modest.” Slughorn took a sip of his wine. “What a shame I only get to teach you for a year. You must have big dreams for your career once you leave Hogwarts?”  
Lucia coloured and looked down at her hands. “Not yet.”  
“Ah, well, I’m sure Albus has plans for you. Ah! There’s Potter. I know you were saying that you wanted to meet him, Ivan.” Slughorn put a tidal hand on the man’s back in an attempt to wash him away. As the pale man turned, he eyed Lucia for a final time and then glanced at Snape. He was visibly startled by the contempt in Snape’s eyes. For a moment, Snape thought that Lucia, too, would walk away from him. But she reached for a drink from a passing house elf and held it out for him.  
“Whiskey is your favourite, isn’t it, professor?”  
“It is.” He took the glass from her. There was exhaustion in her lungs; he could hear it even when she breathed.  
“Professor?”  
“What is it?”  
“I didn’t forget your present.” she pulled her hair across her left shoulder. “I left it in your office before I came here.”  
“Thank you.” he said it slowly.  
“You’re welcome. You might not want to use it, but…” She glanced up at him and smiled. It was a tentative expression, How long since he had seen it? When that smile faltered, he reached for her gloved hand so gently that initially Lucia thought it was an accident.  
“Professor?”  
“How is your injury?”  
“It’s fine. Thank you for your concern.”  
She was facing away from him, the top of her head in line with his shoulder. From here he could see the stray hairs which had been left on her neck. There was a commotion at the entrance. The music faltered as Malfoy was dragged into the room by Filch. Snape left her and went to the boy.

The fireplace lit itself as Snape moved to his desk with his face in his hands. Below him, papers flickered in response to his exhausted breath. The fire began to torment the walls. He glanced down and saw a box and an envelope with her handwriting on it. For a moment he only looked at his name in her handwriting. Then, still standing, he opened the box. Inside was a vial filled with silvery liquid. He lifted it and inspected what seemed to be a reflection on the glass. But a reflection it was not. It took him a moment to understand that what he was looking at was Slughorn’s party, not as he had seen it an hour ago, but how it was now. With an intake of breath, he realised that he was looking into the ‘life mirror’ potion — a potion which showed the user any scene from the present world. He had heard of this potion before, but had never known it as anything other than a myth. With hands which had a kind of numbness to them, he placed it down, then took up the envelope and began to open it. A piece of parchment fell on his lap, which he reached for while opening the card. Inside was a Christmas message of the sort he usually received from her: formal and yet, somehow, fiercely intimate. He placed the card upright on his desk and observed the slip of parchment. On it was a defensive spell she had created herself.  
For some minutes he was still. Then he stood up and threw the card into the fireplace. The edges set alight first, caterpillaring into lifeless cocoons of ash. After a moment, he reached into the fire. The larva disintegrated at his touch.  
Never before had Snape been so close to abandoning a request of Dumbledore’s. With tormented, waterlogged movements, he stood once more and went to his desk, where the slip of parchment was curled over. He took it into his hands and sat down. Lucia’s handwriting: self-conscious, tired and with a shake that so obviously came from her cursed hand. How long would such a spell have taken to make, let alone the potion? How many hours, alone, with nothing but some textbooks and a snack from the kitchen? All for someone who had never shown her any real favour. Someone who had told her that her love was a waste.  
He groaned aloud and slammed the spell into his top drawer. Her laughter, her smile, her face over the parchment…  
And then there was Lily. He thought of those forest eyes and that straight nose with a kind of desperation. But when he looked up, into the potion, it was not flora he could see, not the clay colours of the earth — it was the ocean.

It was a Friday afternoon in May. For a long time, Snape had only seen Lucia in lessons. As usual, she arrived early and was waiting outside his classroom with the back of her head on the wall. Her hair was tied back in a ponytail and her eyes were closed. After observing her for a moment, Snape stood, went to the door, and waited in the doorway. For at least a minute, she did not open her eyes.  
“Miss Black.”  
She almost dropped her bag. Her body turned to him she gave a butterfly laugh.  
“Forgive me, Professor, I was thinking.” her hand went to her ponytail.  
“No matter. Come in.” he stood to the side slightly and as she brushed past him he had an almost irrepressible urge to still her. Today, she had forgotten to wear her perfume, and it meant that the coconut scent of her shampoo cracked over him all the more vividly. She took her seat and smiled at him nervously as he passed her and went to his desk.  
“Do you have your homework?” he asked, seating himself without taking his eyes from her. It was not what he had wanted to ask.  
“Of course.” In a movement that was obviously painful for her, she opened up her bag and began searching for it. As she did so, he saw the potions book he had bought for her in Hogsmead. The sound of the other students reached them from the corridor. Trying to ignore the sub zero temperature in his stomach, he beckoned them in and began the lesson. After speaking for a few minutes, he set them the task of revising the differences between specific spells cast verbally and nonverbally in their textbooks.   
With ten minutes left, Belby put his hand up.  
“What is it Mr Belby?”  
“Sir,” the boy looked back toward Lucia’s desk and Snape’s eyes followed also. “I think Lucia’s asleep.”  
Snape grunted and approached her, conscious that his students were watching him. Her head was down on her open book and her cloak was whispering with her breathing. He touched her shoulder before coming away from her and addressing the class.  
“One more minute gathering the necessary information and then I want you to partner up and share ideas.” he said.  
“Do you want me to wake Lucia?” Belby almost managed to say it with indifference.  
“That will not be necessary, Mr Belby.”  
A minute passed and the students got into pairs. Yet even when they began discussing their spells, Lucia did not awaken. Snape circulated the room, listening to the student’s discussions and interjecting at certain moments. The lesson ended and the students left, some of them glancing back at the girl who was still asleep on her half finished work. Snape shut the door behind them and went to his desk.   
For some time he sat marking their homework, glancing up occasionally at her. The time for dinner passed and the sun began to set. After marking a set of third years’ essays, Snape finally put down his quill. His Trojan heartbeat sounded as he stood and approached her. The page of her book was quivering from her breath. Slowly, he reached down and touched her Posidonia hair, feeling the grass of it between his fingers.  
“Lucia…” he said her name quietly, almost reluctantly. It made a beautiful sound. “Lucia, wake up.” When she didn't respond, he sat against her desk, his hand close to hers. Then he looked into the bookshelves. Thousands of fingerprints on the surface of everything, so easily and so frivolously left behind.  
He knelt down before her and took both her hands in his. In a kind of frenzy, he took off the gloves she had worn in order to hide the curse.  
“My God.” he whispered, dropping the gloves on the ground, “What have you done?” His whole body was trembling. “And in vain. He will die and I will be the one to end it.” he pressed her hands to his forehead, “You will never forgive me. How could you ever forgive me…?”  
His voice caused her to stir. He pulled away so suddenly that he stumbled into the desk behind and knocked over the chair. Yet even the commotion did not awaken her; she simply murmured something unintelligible with a slight turn of her head. Snape tried to watch her through the torrent of emotion that seemed to be dizzying him. He picked up the chair and returned to his desk with a weakened, noiseless, but almost hysterical laugh at himself.

It was dark when Lucia awoke in Snape’s classroom. The only light came from the full moon, which foamed in through the windows. She groaned as she sat up, taking hold of her hands as the pain of them carped up her arms. It took her a moment to realise she had fallen asleep somewhere unusual. Alarmed, she looked up at Snape’s desk. He was watching her with unusually expressive eyes.  
“Forgive me…” her voice was hoarse, “Did I… fall asleep in your class?”  
“You did.”  
She brought her hands to her face, only realising later that her gloves had been removed. “I’m so sorry.”  
“Even a revitalising potion cannot counter a complete disregard of sleep, Miss Black.”  
A thieving colour crept up her neck. “I was careless. It won’t happen again.”  
“You will not be able to help it, if you maintain your current activity.” his voice was quaking through the darkness. “But you already know this.”   
He stood up and moved to her, pulling out a chair and sitting recklessly close to her. “Look at me.”  
Her breath whispered against him as she did so.  
“Tell me,” the snow of his self control was melting from his face, “How long can one survive under the curse you are trying to cure?”  
“If contained… about a year.”   
“And how long has the headmaster been under the curse?”  
“Almost a year.”  
“And tell me,” his usually smooth voice was on the rocks, “What will happen if you can’t save him before June?”  
A bat alighted on the windowpane. Its shadow trembled into the room.   
“I don’t know…” The moonlight lapped against her as she breathed. “He might - it depends when the curse-”  
“He will die, Lucia.” Snape was looking directly into her eyes, “He will die.”  
There was a moment in which neither of them moved. The bat fluttered away, and the sound of its wings tyrannised the silence. He stood up and went to the window. Lucia noticed that he was trembling.   
“And after he is dead…” he said it with his hands on the windowsill. “Have you thought about what happens then?”  
“I…” it was barely more than a breath, “I’ve thought about it.”  
“Your decision?” he said, turning to her abruptly.  
“You want to know if I will go to him.” she met his eyes.  
“Will you?”  
For a moment there was silence. Lucia watched him with such a tender expression that, had he looked over at her, he would not have been able to forget it for the rest of his life.  
“It’s my intention to save my grandfather.”  
“You will not save him.” All his composure was pressed into the grout between the stones. “You will not save him. You will not.” and he turned to her, the moonlight slicing over the anguish on his face.  
“Then I will support Harry Potter.” she said it gently, but her voice was alight. Snape’s hand slipped off the windowsill. “I will do anything I can to help him.”  
“Against your father?”  
“Yes.”  
“Will you go to the Order?”  
“I haven’t decided yet.”  
“The Order will be scattered without Albus.” Snape looked back out of the window. The silvered outline of the girl before him was too beautiful, too agonising.  
“I’ll find a way.” she stood now, and there was something etherial about the way her robes ghosted into the moonlight.  
“You should go to your great uncle.” he said if from behind the remnants of his composure.  
“Perhaps.” and she took a tentative step toward him.  
“From there, you should contact the Weasleys. They will have access to the rest of the members of the Order who could keep you safe. I believe Rufus will reach out to you directly, but the Ministry will fall, Lucia. It will fall, do not get entangled in it. Instead, stay with your uncle, the Dark Lord will not know how to access you there. As for Potter, Dumbledore has given him a job, I don’t know what, he keeps it infuriatingly quiet. You are best to leave him be, I would rather you were safe and-”   
He realised that she was beside him and could not finish the sentence. There was too much in her expression, and all of it for him.  
“And you? Where will you be?” The torn away scales of innumerable fish seemed to glow in her eyes.  
“Me?” he swallowed, “I will be with the Dark Lord.”  
There was a flicker as something flew across the moon. Lucia reached for his hand.  
“Forgive me.” she was holding on to his fingertips, “Forgive me, but I don’t think there will be another chance.”  
“What is it?” His voice, so loud before, was struggling against the darkness.  
“I love you.”  
“I’ve told you before-”  
“I love you.” she raised his unresisting hand to her cheek and held it there.  
“It is an illusion.”  
“Forgive me,” she squeezed his fingertips. “But it’s not.”  
“An illusion. A trick of the light. It will not last.”  
“It will outlast everything.”  
Her footsteps away from him were silent. Only when she was at the door did she glance back at him.  
“Professor,” she placed her hands against the doorframe, “May I ask you something?” and she turned to him in time to see his subtle nod. “It's a bit of an unreasonable request, but it’s incredibly important to me.”  
“I am listening.” his voice had the quietness of a long distance call.  
“Please promise me you won’t forget what I said to you tonight. Not about Harry and not about my feelings.”  
And she was gone. Snape looked over to the doorway, his hands spotted with her tears.


	28. Chapter 28

June 30th. Lucia was running to her Grandfather’s office. At the gargoyle, she said the password and ascended the stairs two at a time. She knocked, but did not await his permission to enter.  
“Lucia?”  
It was the only thing he had time to say. She ran directly to him and pressed a vial into his hands, knocking over a paperweight with her elbow.  
“I did it.” she could barely speak. “I did it, Grandpa. I did it.”  
Dumbledore glanced at the vial. The liquid was an ultramarine colour.  
“You’re saved.”  
But when she saw his expression, her smile faltered.  
“Grandpa? You don’t believe me?” she lifted up her sleeves and turned her hands over before him. “See? I’ve tested it more than once. It will work. It will work!”  
“Lucia… sit down.”  
She did so, her expression a hybrid of excitement and perplexity. Dumbledore placed the vial on his desk and looked at the space between his entwined fingers.  
“Thank you.”  
Those two words took a very long time to say. She was still for a moment, then reached forward and took Dumbledore’s hands.  
“I would do it again. A thousand times again, to save you. Had it cost me my life I would have done it.”   
Dumbledore smiled at that space between his hands, which hers were so nearly covering. He knew Lucia was looking at him.  
“Grandpa?”  
“You should not have made it.”  
She retreated to the backrest of her seat.  
“What are you saying?”  
He chuckled to himself, but his laugh was simply a tremor.  
“I know you worked so hard… you went through so much pain…” when he spoke again, his voice sounded only on the vowels. “I did not think you could do it.”  
Lucia watched him as he gazed at his fingertips, wanting, though not daring, to touch him.  
“Thank you.” he said, meeting her gaze.  
“It was nothing.”  
“No, Lucia. It is everything.” his head dropped, and for a moment Lucia thought he might cry out. But instead he pursed his lips together and whispered: “This little vial is everything.”  
There was a silence, interrupted only by the sound of breathing from the portraits. Finally, Albus looked up at her once more. It would be the last time they ever looked at one another. When he didn’t speak, she leaned forward once more.  
“You will take it, won’t you?” It was the chaos in his expression that had unnerved her, “Take it now.”  
“I will take it.”  
“I’ll get a glass—” she made to conjure one.  
“No need. I will take it.”  
“When? You might feel a bit sick but, otherwise, there are no side effects.”  
“Later.”  
“When I leave?   
“Yes, Lucia. I will take it.”  
With an almost formal nod, she went to the door, as if all he needed were a few moments. Yet, with each step away from him, she seemed to be more confused about whether the trickery was hers or his. At the door, she stopped.  
“You will certainly take it?” she said, her palm on the handle.  
“I will most certainly take it.”  
For a second time, she almost left. “Grandpa, why do I feel that you won’t take it?”  
“I will take it, Lucia.”   
For many years, the paintings would converse about how Albus had managed such a smile at that time. Upon seeing it, Lucia turned and departed, though it was obviously difficult for her to do so.  
In the rainfall of countless curious breaths, Albus sat completely still. The clock hand was all that moved; there was no choice for it but to move.  
“‘Do not go gentle into that good night.’” Albus opened his desk drawer with what seemed to be a spontaneous motion. Inside, Tom Riddle’s ring rocked on its lightless stone. “She will not understand.”  
He took out the ring and ran his thumb along the cut that he had made on the stone.  
“She will not know how I raged…” the ring seemed to hold onto his fingerprints as he placed it on his third digit, “…against the dying of the light…”  
He made to remove it. The intensity of the movement caused the ring to catch on his knuckle.  
“Headmaster, if I may…” Phineas had none of the usual brevity to his voice, “Why not take it?”  
“Because if I live, another must die.”  
And he once again attempted to remove the stone, more specifically the dying light on that stone, which so agonised him. His knuckle reddened, then began to bleed as he pulled. “And yet, I think to myself that I can do more than he. What I always believed I begin to doubt. Who judges our value? Who is to say that he should take the place of her guardian? I do not want to perish!”  
There was a knock at the door. In a kind of unbridled, cascading motion, he looked toward the clock. Harry Potter.

For the first time in months, Lucia returned to the Ravenclaw common room. Her friends were not sat by the windows where they had always sat before, and Lucia realised with crushing swiftness that she did not know where they spent their time now. A number of the students turned to look at her as she entered, but they quickly returned to their conversations, which would, as soon as she departed, turn to her. For a moment, she stood at the entrance. Opposite her, the dormitory windows showed the school grounds in grapefruit segments. There was a peculiar expression on her face; she had the sense that something had ended in her grandfather’s circular office. Overwhelmed, she left the tower and began to roam the corridors, not knowing where she was headed. It was at this moment, as she was moving toward the dungeons, that she heard the raised voices of intruders.

Lucia had never run so fast. As she reached the astronomy tower stairs, a spell passed her face. She deflected another that would have hit her on the chest and then stunned the caster. Fenrir Greyback was behind her. To her left, McGonagall was duelling with Bellatrix Lestrange. Lucia aimed a stunning curse at Lestrange, then turned to duel Greyback. But he was no longer there. A spell came at her from Goyle, who was on the stairs. This she rebounded, and he fell over the banister. After another moment searching for Greyback, she began to run up the stairs. She saw the green light of the killing curse before she heard the voice that said it. It was the voice which halted her. Snape. Undoubtably, it had been Snape.  
The hands of Greyback gripped her throat from behind. They stumbled down six steps as she struggled to free herself. On the seventh, she managed an advanced confundus charm which sent him tumbling toward the fighting below. Then, above her, several death eaters filtered onto the stairway. Snape was leading them. Lucia pointed her wand at them.  
“Who died!?” her hands were trembling.  
Yaxley took a step toward her. Her wand went to his face immediately.  
“Who died?!”  
“It was Dumbledore.” Snape said it. Lucia turned to him. There was so much devastation in her expression that it took all his self control to stay where he was. For a second it seemed that she was going to drop her wand. Yaxley used the opportunity to take another step toward her.  
“But I…” her hand lowered, “I…”  
Yaxley took another step toward her.  
“Where-” she began.  
“He fell!” Malfoy’s voice was disfigured. Yaxley took yet another step toward her. Had she been more attentive, Lucia would have noticed that Snape was aiming his wand at Yaxley’s back.  
“You killed him?”  
She said it to Snape. The two of them looked at one another. Malfoy was watching Snape from the side.  
“I killed him.”  
This time she really did drop her wand. Yaxley watched it roll away from her.  
“But I had-” her voice seemed to have travelled through the underworld, “The potion, Professor - I succeeded-”  
What little motion there was in Snape’s body left him. Only with tremendous self control was he able to stay standing.  
“Potion?” Yaxley did not dare take his eyes from Lucia to look back at Snape. “What potion?” but when Snape did not reply, he raised a hand as if to swat the idea away. The sound of Bill Weasley’s screams sounded up the stairs. It was this that broke Snape and Lucia’s eye contact. Instinctively, Lucia turned to run. There was a cracking noise behind her as Yaxley was knocked by Snape’s incantation into the wall.  
“What is wrong with you?!” Yaxley’s voice followed her as she reached the corridor. “I would have had her!”  
“She belongs to the Dark Lord!”  
Lucia ran away from Snape’s voice, down the stairs and past Hermione and Ginny, who were duelling Dolohov. Then she rounded a corner, narrowly avoiding a hex that had accidentally been sent at her by Fred Weasley. She continued running, past duels and then through the corridors. The sound of battling quietened until, eventually, she reached the grounds. Here it was deserted. No one yet had found Dumbledore’s body, which was horrifically sprawled. Tears falling over her robes, Lucia knelt over her grandfather.  
“Ah…” it was the only sound she was capable of. She pressed her face into his robes. His body, already the temperature of the earth, quaked as she sobbed against him. With indescribable anguish, she took hold of his hands and squeezed them. But there was no reactionary touch, no comforting thumb-flicker; his hand seemed to have the mass of the universe.  
“G-” it was only the semblance of speech, “Grandpa!”  
Only then, as she desperately squeezed those monstrously heavy hands a second time, did she recognise the blackness of them. For a moment she stared at them, trying to think through the discordant scream of her emotions. Then she understood at once: he had not taken the potion.  
There was a jeer from the castle entrance. She could hear Harry Potter’s voice, but could not understand what he was saying. Her decision was instantaneous. Without looking at her Grandfather again, she stood and ran to Potter. There were shouts in the distance. Harry’s silhouette glowed red as he was hit from behind by one of the Carrows.  
“Impedimentia!” Harry shouted. The curse hit the sister, who tripped up the brother as she fell. Harry scrambled up and continued running. With a movement of her hand, Lucia brought the Carrows to their feet.  
“This way.” Lucia said as she passed them. Both siblings watched her back for a moment, then the eldest sent a hex at her. This she parried. The light of Hagrid’s burning cabin breathed over her as she turned on them.  
“You would dare strike the Dark Lord’s daughter?” and her voice had in it all the cooled rage of Voldemort himself. The sister bowed her head. Lucia looked toward the brother. “And you?”  
It was an irresistible command. He, too, bowed his head.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Poetry from Dylan Thomas


	29. Chapter 29

An unfeeling moonlight was observing Malfoy manor. Snape was sat beside Voldemort in the candlelit drawing room, having just divulged the occurrences at Hogwarts. Yaxley, on Voldemort’s left, had attempted more than once to interrupt, but Voldemort had stayed his interjections with a risen hand. By the window, accompanied by a restless shadow, was Narcissa Malfoy, who often stopped to listen to Snape’s account before beginning to pace again.  
“You have done well.” Voldemort’s smile was unsteady. “Yes, I was right to trust you, Severus.”  
Snape nodded, his expression impassive.  
“Narcissa, be still.” Voldemort glanced at her as she complied. “Your boy has redeemed you. Tonight is a time for celebration.” and he stood up, opening out his hands in almost sensual elation. “The old fool is dead!”   
He began to laugh: it was an unrestrained, rampaging sound which was accompanied only by Yaxley’s nervous tittering. Then there was a knock on the door. Voldemort’s laugh ended like a broken neck.  
“This had better be important, Wormtail.” his voice candle-smoked as he turned to the now opening door.  
“My Lord,” Wormtail’s head was bowed below the door handle, “I would not have disturbed you if it was not important, My Lord.”  
“Out with it.”  
“The Carrows, my Lord, are returned…”  
“I hope that is not your idea of important, Wormtail.”  
“Ah, my Lord, you see… with them…”  
It was unclear who understood first. Voldemort inhaled with his whole body. Snape became very still.  
“Lucia Black, my Lord.” Wormtail finished.  
Even Narcissa flickered with surprise. Yaxley was watching the shadows in the hollows of Voldemort’s cheeks.  
“Bring her to me.” Voldemort said, returning to his chair with an etherial movement that his robes struggled to follow. After nodding, Wormtail retreated, never bringing his head above that door handle. The door was closed. Narcissa did not dare sit down. Had Voldemort been more in possession of himself, he would have looked over at Snape.  
After a moment, there was another knock.  
“Come in.” Voldemort said. It was Wormtail who opened the door once again, his whole body stooped. Behind him was Lucia, standing with contrasting verticality. Her expression was controlled, her Atlantic eyes steady. She stepped into the room, her Hogwarts robes opening slightly over her body.  
“Leave, Wormtail.” Voldemort did not look away from his daughter when he spoke. “Lucia, come and sit here.”  
Lucia moved to him. Narcissa watched, then glanced at Snape, who was completely still, breathing without appearing to do so. His forehead, his jaw, his shoulders, all of it gave the impression of disinterest. But his eyes, which never once left Lucia, were thrashing with despair.  
“Lucia,” Voldemort’s hand rose to her face, but did not touch her. “I knew you would come.”  
“Of course, father.” and she smiled, “As soon as Dumbledore died, I was freed.”  
Her use of his surname did not go unnoticed.  
“Yes.” Voldemort regarded her for some time. What passed between them, unspoken, the others could not have said. Eventually, Voldemort smiled. “You are so like your mother.”  
“They say I am also like you.”  
“Undoubtedly.” he stood and ghosted to the fireplace. “Your place is here, with your father. Come, you must be tired. We can talk at length tomorrow. Narcissa, show her to a room.”  
“Yes, My Lord.” with a tentative movement Narcissa moved to the door, unable to forget the ruinous expression she had seen in Snape’s eyes.

They were corridors that had once been well looked after. Lucia and Narcissa walked through them in silence, past generations of Malfoys who no longer had any interest in observing the world. These portraits would, if asked or able, have long since ended their confined lives. There was no charm which could save them from the horror of an eternity of watching people pass them by.  
On the faces of both Lucia and Narcissa was a look of determined contemplation. If one of the portraits had glanced down, they would have thought it shared. But Lucia and Narcissa were thinking very differently. Narcissa stopped at a door on the second floor which she had very nearly walked past, then opened it and stood aside to let Lucia pass. As she did so, the women glanced at one another.  
“No, no, not this room.” Narcissa said, closing the door and continuing down the corridor. Lucia watched her a moment, then followed her. They continued down the noiseless corridor until they reached a window at the end, under which a single, ever blooming daffodil was potted. It was in the moonlight that Narcissa stopped and turned to the young woman. Lucia’s trapped beauty, hanging by tendrils between earthly and heavenly, was agonisingly poignant under that sterling moonlight; it was difficult for Narcissa to look at her.  
“Would you like to sleep near your father?” Narcissa asked, rubbing a knuckle of her left hand. Lucia looked into her eyes.  
“I will stay in any room you are graceful enough to oblige me.” she said.  
“You are polite.” Narcissa’s voice was disdainful, but timidly so.  
“Is it unnecessary?”  
“No.” Narcissa turned away from her. “No, I don’t care.” and she flicked her hand before beginning along the corridor to their left, moving in and out of moonlight from the windows. Before another door, she stopped.  
“This room is the room beside your father’s.” she said, narrowing her eyes.  
“Thank you.” Lucia did not look at her this time. For a moment they stood without moving at all. Then Narcissa opened the door and stood aside. It was a luxurious room, but Lucia did not make the observation. She passed Narcissa and stood in the space as one would stand on railway tracks. The door was the crossing gate. Narcissa began to shut it.  
“Thank you.” Lucia said it abruptly, almost accidentally. A cloud passed over the moon. Narcissa turned away from her with a nod and for a second time almost closed the door. From behind a five inch gap, she sighed. Only her fingers could be seen from inside the room.  
“My son.” she said, with her back against the mahogany. “He did it for his father.”  
She stayed on the other side of the door for a moment longer. Then she shut it, leaving everything else that she had wanted to say pressed into the door handle.  
Lucia stood for a very long time in the moonlight. One would not have noticed, watching her from the doorway, that she was crying. Her tears were unobtrusive; they did not change her breath or the stillness of her shoulders. But they were monstrous tears and in them was the titanic weight of something that she could not calm. She moved to the bed and sat on it, bringing her hands to her face and crushing those tears with her palms.  
There was a knock at the door.  
“Come in.” she said it with formidable composure. The door was pushed open. Snape stood in the doorway, his hands in fists. From the colour on her cheeks, he immediately established that she had been crying.  
“The Dark Lord sent me to inquire as to your comfort.” he said, his hands together.  
It was a lie.  
“I’m comfortable.” she replied, “Thank you, Professor.”  
“Very well.” and with a nod, he closed the door. Immediately, he opened it again. She was not expecting the second intrusion; he could hear her inhale as she turned to him. He approached her, forgetting to close the door, then knelt down before her and took her hands in his. There was a sound that could well have been an attempt to say her name. As she felt the tremble in his grip, the composure that she had so skilfully maintained slipped: she squeezed his fingers and felt him tighten his already painful hold in return. It was a touch so saturated with remorse and despair that she began to cry once more. Her soundless tears fell in twos. Only after a moment did she realise that he was crying also. Slowly, she brought her head down and rest it on his. From here, she could hear his unsteady breathing.  
“I’m sorry.” he said it into her hands, his lips against her palms.  
Lucia lifted herself to speak into his hair.  
“I forgive you.” she whispered.  
“You must not.”  
“I forgive you.”  
“I killed him…”  
“I forgive you.”  
He looked up at her. From this distance, he could feel her breath, could see himself in her eyes.   
“I do not deserve your forgiveness.” he almost pulled away, but that timid touch of hers kept him still, “I did not think you could heal him. Had I known… had I known…”  
“I already understand.” and she held his shaking hand in both of her own. His mouth was open; he wanted to speak, but yesterday’s words were all he had - language had not been prepared for this. Upon looking away, he realised that he had left the door open. Yet before he could move to close it, Lucia reached forward and took hold of him once more with a touch that felt like goodbye.  
“Please remember what you promised.” she whispered, her hands rising as he stood up. “Please don’t forget.”   
He nodded, but almost sat back down.  
“Let me help you leave here.” he murmured, “You can still go back, I can still help you.”  
She gave only one shake of her head and looked down at her chest as she did so.  
“You want to be with him?” he asked into the darkness.  
“I need to be here.”  
Snape was almost certain he saw her smile. But the night took that brief expression of hers as it had taken everything else. Slowly, he backed away from her.  
“There is nothing I can do?”  
The last time his voice had taken such a tone was when he was begging for the life of Lily Evans.  
“Still, I’m grateful, Professor.”  
“It is my fault you are here.”  
“No,” once again, she seemed to smile. “It is my choice.”  
Her eyes went to the door and he was reminded that he had left it open. He turned and moved toward it. At the threshold, he stopped to decide whether he should leave, or go back to her. Even Lucia did not realise how close he came, in those moonlit moments, to turning back and embracing her. But a noise in the corridor prompted him to leave without looking back. Only later would he regret leaving without making certain of her last expression, which from then on would permeate his dreams in its many possibilities.


	30. Chapter 30

Early morning. Andromeda’s light through the open window. Lucia was laying in the borrowed bed, her eyes on that distant galaxy. Above her head, chlorophyll green curtains twitched from the spidery air. There was a sound in the corridor outside. She looked toward the door, but did not sit up immediately; movement seemed ruinously difficult.  
After bathing and dressing, she stood before the mirror. It was a transient reflection, still chiming with the last moments of childhood. She tied back her hair and the coastline of her shoulders chalked into the darkness. With a last moment to compose herself, she left the room. There was nobody in the corridor so she walked undisturbed to the drawing room, where Voldemort was sat in a chair by the fire. He did not look around as she entered.  
“Come and sit down.” he said, beckoning her. Only embers were in the fireplace. Lucia sat in the chair opposite him, the one Snape had occupied the evening before.  
“I want to know about you.” he said.  
Only now did he look at her, his eyes beaching sediment from the underworld into the room.  
“Where should I begin?” she braved the horrors of his pupils.  
“Your accomplishments.”  
It was not really what he wanted to know; she understood this from the way he watched her. He was learning the pace of her speech, the movements of her hands, the height of her shoulders.  
“I can read ancient magic. I’m an accomplished alchemist and I have not yet encountered a spell that I can not perform…”  
“You’re a legilimens.”  
“Yes. Also, wandless magic…”  
“Ah yes, I’ve heard of your wandless magic.” his voice was strangely quiet, “It’s a skill you inherit from your mother.”  
“Not from you?” she said it while looking down at her knees. He regarded her bare shoulders.  
“Not from me.”  
There was a pause.  
“Did you love her?” Lucia asked it in Parseltongue. Voldemort narrowed his eyes and leaned onto his hand.  
“Yes.” The serpentine language slithered over the rug; Lucia listened as its body writhed in the silence.  
“Do you still?”  
“I wonder.” he said it in the mountain passes of english, “For now, we are talking about you. Only a year ago, you attempted to save Potter’s life. You understand that this perplexes me.” his knuckles were against his chin.  
“I was mistaken.” she said.  
“When did you learn?” it was a liquid nitrogen gaze.  
“When I learned how my mother died.”  
Voldemort seemed to shiver. His gaze solidified as it settled on the coals in the fireplace. “That is the last time we will speak of it.” he said.  
“My apologises.”  
“What took you so long to come to me?”  
“I was bound by Dumbledore.” here, she hesitated, “And by my own indecisiveness. I did not even know I was your daughter until two years ago.”  
“I had anticipated that the old fool would keep it from you. He would have wanted to ensure that you were thoroughly conditioned before telling you.”  
“And I was. I was convinced in my distinctness from you. But then I began to experiment with dark magic… that’s when I realised we are not so very different.” she looked up into his shipwrecked face, a face that had once been so like hers. “Do you know what I want, father?”  
“Tell me.”  
“Power over that which no other has been able to control…”  
Voldemort’s smile was triumphant. “You want immortality?”  
“I want power over death.”  
“There is no difference.”  
“Forgive me, there is all the difference in the world.” her voice had in it the Reaper’s scythe. For a moment, Voldemort regarded her. Unable to understand the carnage in her face, he rested his chin on his hand and frowned.  
“There is one more thing,” his eyes smoked over her, “Your relationship with Severus.”  
The treacherous colour was swift in its betrayal.  
“You desire him?” He waited without moving.  
“He is my professor.”  
“Do not elude me.”  
“I…” Lucia swallowed, “Feel nothing for him.”  
“Nothing? He killed your grandfather.”  
“Then call it gratitude and nothing more. He liberated me.”  
Voldemort smiled, then sat back in his chair and closed his eyes.  
“You have made the right choice in returning to my side.” he said, opening his eyes once more to look into the fire. “For a long time I thought you dead - I had never expected the Ministry to leave my heir alive.”  
“I am alive because of my mother.”  
“Because of your mother.” Voldemort made a movement with his shoulders which was almost a shrug. “Perhaps she might even have approved of your return. Now leave me, Lucia. There will be plenty throughout the manor who will tend to your needs. When I require you, I will call you.”

Lucia did not return to her room. Instead, she began to search the manor, using the faces on the portraits to discern where she was going. She was not bold enough to open closed doors but, on more than one occasion, she used a revealing charm to learn whether they were occupied. None of them were. As she descended a third flight of stairs, she looked down at the watery sunlight on the carpet and realised how alone she had become. The movement of clouds caused ripples in that sunlight, which lapped against the shoreline of her skin. Footsteps sounded behind her. She turned and met the eyes of Dolohov, who was standing on the top step.  
“Good morning.” she said, then looked back toward the sunlight.  
“Morning.” he held on to the banister as he descended, something he had never done before. In the island yellow, he could see the mangrove of her hair over her shoulder. He waited until he was level with her before he spoke again. “Lucia Black, isn’t it?”  
“Yes.” but her voice negated the words.  
“Antonin Dolohov.” he waited a moment, yet still she did not look away from the window. “I knew your mother.”  
“Is that so?” and he saw her cheek move, but what expression had caused it to do so, he could not discern.  
“Are you comfortable here?” He took a step forward in order to see her face better.  
“Yes, thank you.” this time she turned to him, and he saw her cheeks move with a smile.  
“Is there somewhere you’re going? Somewhere I can direct you?”  
“You are kind.” the crumbling sandcastle of her nod at him. “I am looking for the library… I believe there is a library…”  
“There is. Come, let me show you.” he moved past her. When she didn’t follow immediately, he turned back to her. There was a tropical stillness in her body against the ever-moving sunlight that was ridiculously enticing. “You don’t want to?”  
One last smile from her, and it brought a humbling rain. He felt foolish and fiercely possessive. Between them was the oceanic light, unnavigable, uncrossable.  
“I would be much obliged.” It was formal. She came out of the sunlight and stood beside him.  
He began walking to the library, choosing quieter corridors in an attempt to remain alone with her. Eventually they reached the room, which was also unoccupied. He opened the door for her and followed her in.  
“What made you come here?” he asked it while placing himself between her and the bookshelves.  
“To the library?”  
“To the Dark Lord.”  
Her hand became still on the spine of a book she was touching. “That is between me and my father.”  
It had been a gentle voice, but in it rang the sound of a closing gate. She looked toward the handwritten book before her without any change in expression. Then she looked back up toward him, with eyes that could have upturned any vessel. He felt himself swallowing water in the depths of these eyes.  
“Sorry, sorry.”  
He regretted his apology as soon as he said it; yet, had she looked at him like that again, he would have repeated it. The hand that he had risen in order to block her retreat remained inactive, and she passed him unhindered.

For the next few weeks, Lucia sat in meetings beside her father, listening to discussions on how best to take the ministry, or how best to take Harry Potter. At times, she saw Snape. Not a soul would have imagined that the moments she spent in his company were the most difficult for her. While the way she spoke to him, still referring to him as ‘Professor’, and the way she looked at him indicated indifference, she achieved it only with ferocious self-control. Likewise, he could only be in her presence in an almost dreamlike state, in which he was overly conscious of every breath, of every movement, of every change of light. The shadows of mice became the shadows of monsters and the smile of the Dark Lord became a scythe at his throat.  
When not in meetings or alone in her room researching, Lucia was taught magic by her father. It was in these lessons that she first began to understand him. As he showed her the complicated incantations he had formulated himself, she would often see him unpredictably lapse into silence. At times he would touch her gently, at others he would grip her with animalistic force. Often, she would feel his eyes on her profile and when she turned to him, she was almost certain she could see something very like remorse in the serpentine curvature of his face.


	31. Chapter 31

Then came the night of the 26th - the night of the assault on Harry Potter. On her way to the garden, from which they were to depart, she encountered Snape. It was not by accident; he had been seeking her.  
"Good evening.” she said, without slowing.  
"Lucia." Snape extended his hand into her path. "Stop a moment."  
She did so, but not without raising her eyebrows in a way particular to her after her return to her father.  
"We are needed in the gardens, Professor. I take it you are going to intercept Potter?"  
"I am bound for the same place as you." he still had not lowered his hand. "Though it would be better if you did not go."  
There was a flicker at the end of the hallway. Only Luica saw it.  
“Thank you for your advice, but it is unnecessary. I am not going.” she made to move past him, but he did not move his hand. Her eyes flicked back to the end of the corridor. It was still. When she spoke again, it was with unbelievable gentleness.  
"Please, Professor.”  
That voice, so outwardly tentative but with an innocent grip that could suffocate any man, would have been too much for Dolohov. Snape, however, was not dissuaded by it.  
“There is nobody there.” he said.  
“There is always somebody.” Lucia had not taken her eyes from the end of the hallway, though she was conscious that Snape had leaned closer to her.  
“I cannot talk to the Dark Lord’s daughter?”  
“The Dark Lord’s daughter cannot talk to you.”  
She gave him two seconds of her gaze, then made to pass him again. This time, he placed his hand on her shoulder.  
“Leave here.” he whispered it, his cheek close to hers.  
“I cannot.” she made to take his hand from her shoulder, but he took hold of her fingers. Her blush was immediate.   
“There are other ways, Lucia.”  
The hallway darkened; Lucia had used a dilluminating charm and the cheshire moon was not generous with its light; Snape felt her move before he saw her do so.  
“This is the only way, Professor.” This, too, was whispered. Snape could not establish how far away she was.  
“I promised your grandfather that I would watch over you.”  
It was a bubbling silence in Coca Cola darkness. He could not discern her movements from the fizz of soundlessness, but he soon became aware that she was directly before him.  
“Some promises are best not kept.”  
He recoiled. In the darkness, he could not tell how crushing she had intended to be. Had the light given him even the slightest glimpse of her eyes, he would have understood immediately that the reproach existed only in her words, that her expression was one of regret. But he could only hear the firmness of her retreating footsteps, which he interpreted as unbridled condemnation. Each footstep was a thump from the judge’s hammer, and he could not hear them without bringing his hands to his face. When he looked up, the lamps had relit and she had gone. But there, at the end of the corridor, stood Dolohov. He realised with a kind of cliff-edge sensation that she had been right to erect the distance between them.  
“Evening, Severus.” Dolohov approached the professor with his characteristic languidness. His greeting was returned with an acute nod from Snape. “Are you well?”  
“Fine.” Snape turned away and began walking as soon as Dolohov had drawn beside him.  
“You are even more colourless than usual.”  
“I have a migraine.”  
“Surely you can make a potion for that?” the men reached the end of the corridor and began to descend the stairs. Paintings were squinting in the moonlight.  
“Of course. But tonight is not the night for such things.” Snape reached for the button at his throat.  
Dolohov noticed the action, but not its significance. “I hope we get the boy tonight. I’m sick of hearing of him.”  
The lattice of the windows pixilated them as they continued down another corridor. For some time they walked in silence, each only just within the peripheral vision of the other.  
“They say Lucia will not be coming to intercept Potter.” Dolohov said it almost nonchalantly, but there was a challenge in the way he glanced over at Snape as he spoke.  
“The Dark Lord knows what he is doing.” there was no modulation in Snape’s voice, but his fingers had contracted.  
“I think it’s a waste. She would be useful.” Dolohov paused a moment. Whether to make a decision or for emphasis was impossible for Snape to tell. “I heard that the Dark Lord once offered her to you.”  
It was only with immense self-control that Snape was able to maintain his pace. “You are mistaken.”  
“Obviously. Excuse my frankness, but while you may be the Dark Lord’s favourite, there is no way such a beautiful girl would take an interest in you.”  
Snape once again reached for the button at his throat.  
“What I wouldn’t do if I had my way with her.” Dolohov continued, “Can you imagine, that face looking up - on her knees perhaps? The sounds she would make-”  
The next moment, Dolohov was against the wall, Snape gripping his collar. At first he seemed startled, but soon he was laughing, the mercury of the moonlight over his teeth.  
“Ah! You want her!”  
Snape’s grip loosened, but Dolohov didn't move.  
“I knew it. There’s no way you don’t, the way you watch her. Bella was saying it also.” his laughter shook Snape’s arms, “Well? What of it? The Dark Lord favours you. You could have her if you wanted.”  
“She is not a possession.” his distain was obvious.  
“In other words, she isn't interested in you. Pity. I, on the other hand, have gotten to know her very well these last few weeks.”  
There was a sudden exhaustion in the way Snape released Dolohov. He turned away from the man as one would turn away from a scandal.  
“There are more important things for us to focus on.” Snape said, wiping his hands against his chest. Only after he had moved ten paces did Dolohov follow him, a derisive smile changing his features.

****

Evening at the Malfoy Manor. Voldemort was pacing before a sobbing Ollivander in the reception room. Bellatrix, Snape and Dolohov were sat in respective armchairs, Bella and Dolohov inclined in theirs, Snape with his back flush against the backrest, watching as Voldemort stepped in and out of squares of twilight. There was a knock on the door. Nobody looked toward it except Ollivander.   
“Come, Lucia.” Voldemort did not turn to his daughter. She opened the door, then passed through those same squares of sorbet twilight until she reached him. Bellatrix whispered something to Dolohov, but Lucia did not even glance toward them. She neared Voldemort then knelt before him.  
“Good evening, father.” she said, bending her head to kiss his fingers, which he stroked against her cheek.  
“I have called you here for a special task.” he said, “An inauguration of sorts. You will see, over there, Mr Ollivander. No doubt you recognise him.”  
Lucia nodded, looking nowhere but her father’s fingertips. There was a disinterested smile from the Dark Lord.  
“You said you wanted power, my daughter.” even his voice was testing, probing.  
“I want it.”  
“Then feel power. Use the curse.”  
Snape closed his eyes and took a breath that only whispered against his lungs. He missed the momentary tremor that shook Lucia’s shoulders, but Bellatrix didn’t. With a sneer, she laid her head on her arm and her hair fizzed over the side of the armrest.  
“She won’t do it, My Lord.”  
Snape opened his eyes. There was astonishing composure in Lucia’s face.  
“You want to know about the Elder wand, father?” Lucia asked, turning toward Ollivander with a terrifying economy of movement.  
“Yes.” Voldemort flexed his fingers as Lucia stood and approached the wand-maker.   
“Lucia?” Ollivander tried to crawl to her. “Lucia, please, please I remember you… I sold you your wand - even now I remember it…”  
“Don’t speak to her.” It was Dolohov who said it, coming to the edge of his armchair. With a raised hand, Voldemort stayed him. Ollivander looked to those present and began to sob once more.  
“Cruico.”  
It was said so quietly that Snape could not at first understand what he had heard. Yet when Ollivander began screaming there was no mistaking the curse she had used. The more he writhed and foamed, the more animated Voldemort became, until he was standing beside his daughter, his hands over her shoulders, his cloak folding over her.  
“Easy, my daughter.” he said, “I want him coherent.”  
Lucia released Ollivander from the curse. The man slumped onto the floor and carped to and fro.  
“Gregorovitch has the wand.” Lucia said, lowering her hand and readying herself to meet her father’s eyes. “Or at least, that is what he believes.”  
There was a creaking noise as Bellatrix shifted in her armchair. Voldemort smiled and leaned against Lucia. Then he embraced her from behind and laughed into her spine. It was a murderous, jamming laugh that rattled between her vertebrae.  
“Do you hear this?” he said, “Do you hear? Dolohov, call Wormtail. He can take Mr Ollivander back to his cell. My daughter, you surpass my expectations.” Voldemort came away from Lucia with a ghostly softness. “Dolohov, why are you not yet departed? Does my daughter enchant you?”  
Dolohov coloured, then left the room.  
“My daughter, my heir, come to me.” Voldemort held out his hands, into which she put her own. But as she did so, she glanced at Snape. It was a mistake. Her composure flickered and, for a dangerous few seconds, her eyes surged. At a pull from his fingertips, she looked back up at her father.  
“Never before have I seen Crucio so unceasingly performed. Mr Ollivander had barely time to breathe.” then Voldemort laughed once more, “My daughter puts you to shame, Bella.”  
Lestrange made some sort of movement in Snape’s peripheral vision. But he could not look away from the dignified face of Lucia, so unlike how he had ever seen it before. Dolohov reentered with Wormtail and the latter proceeded to remove Ollivander from the room.  
“Ah look how he trembles at the sight of you! Look at the fear you inspire!” Voldemort indicated the dregs of Ollivander’s face. “Is that not power, my daughter?”  
“Of a sort.” Lucia watched the wand-maker’s retreat, her expression impassive. Still Snape had not taken his eyes from her. While her body maintained a remarkable dignity, there was a shallowness to her inhales that was unmistakable.   
“Severus, I want you to go and inform Yaxley that I am intending to travel. There may be time to speak to Gregorovitch before the 26th.”  
“Yes, My Lord.”  
His voice was foggy. With a nod, he closed his robes over his chest and stood to leave. Bellatrix was coiling her hair around her index finger. As Voldemort leaned forward to speak to her, Snape’s view of Lucia was obliterated.


	32. Chapter 32

Two o'clock in the morning. The Dark Lord had retired, and his followers had returned to their dwellings. Only the paintings were astir, watching the swell of moonlight on clouds through the open windows. The clouds strangled the moonlight, so the moonlight began to bleed in the rain. A door opened and Lucia Black, using a revealing charm, left her bedroom. Without a candle to light her way, she moved down the corridor, then down the stairs. The sound of rain through the open windows was louder than her footsteps. She continued her journey until she reached the dungeons. Here, she checked, once again, her surroundings, then entered the cell of Mr Ollivander. At first the man gave a small whimper, stifled by the silencing charm that Lucia had placed on the room. But then Lucia knelt before him with her forehand on the putrid ground and there was no sound Ollivander could have made to articulate his astonishment at how humble, how pitiful, this young woman was.  
"May I help you?" Lucia whispered to him, still not lifting her head.  
Indignation was Ollivander’s first emotion, and there was a ramshackled pride in the way he drew away from the girl on the floor.  
"A trick!" he spat at the crown of Lucia's head.  
"There is no trick." the spit dripped down Lucia's cheek. "Only remorse."  
What little light there was knifed into Ollivander’s face. "Remorse? No remorse could ever... can you even imagine the pain?" the hysteria only sounded in the repetition, "Can you imagine it?"  
"I cannot." Lucia had still not lifted her head. Moisture that was not spit fell into the stones. For a moment, Ollivander couldn't help but pity the young woman before him.  
“I don’t understand…” he drew away from her, “What do you want?”  
"I have a potion that will help-"  
“You can’t fool me! I know who you are!” Ollivander’s voice had the tenor of a man braver than himself.  
“Then you know better than me.” Only now were the tears evident in Lucia’s inhales. She pressed her forehead harder against the stone, then looked up at him. Even in the darkness, he could see the liquid pandemonium in her eyes and the stain of the floor on her beautiful forehead.  
“You expect me to trust you?” he said it from against the wall.  
“I expect nothing. I only… I only hope…”  
There was a pause. In that void of enchanted soundlessness, each of Lucia’s tears made a monstrous tump on the stone.  
“Your wand is a Hawthorne. Eleven inches. Phoenix feather.”  
“Yes.”  
“A contradictory wood.” he had to pause to cough. “A paradoxical one.”  
“So I’ve heard.”  
“You said you had something to help?”  
At first she seemed not to comprehend him. Then, in a tumbling movement, she reached for a vial in her pocket and held it out for him. It stayed aloft between them both, creating a light of its own. When Ollivander didn't reach for it, Lucia took a sip, then held it back out. For a moment longer, the vial remained in limbo. Then he reached forward to take it with such suddenness that it would have startled her had she not foreseen it with her legillemency.  
Having emptied it of its contents, he handed the vial back, then leaned against the wall.  
"Will he kill me?" he asked the darkness first, then the haunting young woman who seemed so much a part of it. “Will he end my life?”  
“I will do my best to save you." It was as if the darkness was responding, so distant was Lucia's voice. She pulled her hood over herself, then went to the door. There, instead of leaving, she took out her wand.  
“Obliviate."

In the hush of midnight, the shadows of innumerable wormy raindrops crawled across the carpet. Lucia moved along the corridors, past sleeping paintings and candles that had burned their wax long ago. Her robes flowed out into a pair of moth wings which murmured behind her as walked, pulling her silken hood further over her face. The robes were a token precaution; no clothing would have been able to hide her identity from the man who was waiting outside her door. When she saw him, she halted and her hands rose to her hood.  
“Where have you been?” Snape asked. His arms were folded and his brows were depressed.  
Instinctively, Lucia took a step back. She began to say something, but faltered. Snape saw her lips move under the shadow of her hood.  
“Come. Where have you been? I have been waiting for over an hour.”  
“Does my Father want me?” she said it in her most composed voice, but almost inaudibly. Again, Snape watched her mouth; her eyes were hidden by the hood.  
“No. I am the one who wants you.”  
She took another step back. This time her voice was less composed. “It would be better if we didn’t speak.”  
“I don’t care about that.” he took a step toward her; it was bigger than either of her steps back.  
“No, no, you mustn’t talk to me. Not now. I am… I have nothing to say to you.” her body was angled toward the corridor she had just emerged from. Even from beneath the cloak, he could tell that she was preparing to take flight.  
“Lucia.”  
“Please…”  
He took another step toward her, but this step was the one which caused her to run. By the time he rounded the corridor, she had already gone. It was his intention to pursue her, but the sound of an opening door halted him.  
“Severus.”  
Voldemort’s voice was molten. From the corridor, one would have seen Snape’s face contort slightly at the sound.  
“My Lord.”  
“Why are you here?”  
The rain sounded throughout the corridor; perhaps Voldemort’s window was open.  
“I was trying to see your daughter, My Lord.”  
“She is not in her room.”  
At first, Snape thought Voldemort had been asking him a question. Though when he turned, finally, to look at the Dark Lord, he understood that it had been a statement — a form of ridicule. Only the rainfall sounded; Voldemort was waiting on purpose.  
“Then, my Lord, I shall take my leave-”  
“Do you know where she is?”  
There was a leak from one of the drainpipes above Voldemort’s window. Both men could hear the sound of the leak on the wooden shutters.  
“I don’t.”  
“She has been to see Ollivander.” and Voldemort smiled slightly, on only one side of his mouth. Again, he waited. As the moments passed, the smile slowly moved to the other side. “She has gone to apologise to him.” he understood the question in Snape’s eyes immediately. “Without my permission, Severus.”  
“My Lord.”  
“Because of you.”  
Raindrops made holes in Snape’s outward breath. “My Lord?”  
“Perhaps it is unfair of me to attribute it to you completely - she is so very like her mother.”  
“I don’t understand.”  
“Do not lie to me.” For the first time, there was anger in Voldemort’s voice. He came away from the doorway and stood in the middle of the corridor. His shadow reached all the way to Snape’s feet.  
“I know that she is in love with you. I know that when she looks at you, she is reminded of herself. She is loyal to me - that much is clear. Nothing else would have caused her to use the curse against Ollivander.” There was a strange, ruinous expression in Voldemort’s eyes. “However it was evident when she looked at you that she hated it.”  
“My Lord-”  
“Evident, Severus, evident. Her mother made the same expression.” As Voldemort approached, his shadow covered Snape’s. “But the real question is why, Severus. Why such shame when she sees you?”  
Had Voldemort not been looking directly at Snape, he would not have understood what was said next, for Snape almost whispered it.  
“She thinks I am good, My Lord.”  
Voldemort began to circle him. “Pardon?”  
“She thinks I am loyal to her grandfather.”  
“You understand that this displeases me greatly.”  
“What can I do, My Lord? I support you openly.”  
“It is a queer form of support, Severus, waiting outside her door at midnight without my permission.”  
There was a creak from the leaking drainpipe, then the sound of rain upon carpet. Snape swallowed, and another smile began on Voldemort’s face - this time one of derision.  
“Do you love my daughter?”  
“My Lord…”  
“Did you hear me? I asked if you love my daughter.”  
“She—”  
“I want an answer.”  
“No. I do not.”  
Voldemort lifted his head, if only to look down at Snape from a greater height.  
“Explain, then, your presence here.”  
Snape could see a stain in the carpet. “I feel responsible for her.”  
“Responsible?”   
“I am not lying to you.”  
“There are others, Severus, who have lied to me and not known it.” and now only the crumbs of his smile were left. “For all your loyalty and servitude, I shall grant you this warning, and only once: I will never allow you my daughter — she is destined for greater things than you. Whatever affections for you she has she will soon grow out of, and the more quickly you leave her in peace, the more quickly she will do so.”  
With one final, condemning look at the man bowed down before him, Voldemort returned to his room. Still staring at the stain on the carpet, Snape eventually moved from Lucia’s doorway for the last time.


	33. Chapter 33

For the next half an hour, Lucia stayed in the library, unapologetically observed by Wormtail, who had not even gotten down a book, but was instead sat with his hands scurrying across the table, his eyes on her. When she stood up to replace the tome she had been reading, he stood also and followed her out of the library and to her room. At her door, she smiled at him.  
“I am going to bathe.” she said, “You will understand that I want my privacy.”  
“Of course.” he looked down at a hole on the toe of his right shoe while she shut the door on him.  
Inside her room, Lucia began to run the bath. As the water filled the tub, she crouched on her knees in the bedroom, then opened her wardrobe and murmured an incantation that allowed her to reach into a small alcove, in which there was a vial of draught which resembled Polyjuice potion. This she drank and replaced, before beginning complex spell. It took over ten minutes, and she had to stop halfway through in order to turn off the bath taps. However, at the end of the incantation, she had conjured a perfect replica of herself. Only now did she undress, leaving her clothes on the bed as her clone went to the bath. The potion she had drunk had begun to take effect and, after a few uncomfortable minutes, she had changed to a young man of her own design. She conjured a more suitable set of robes for herself, before using an invisibility charm and reaching into the wardrobe for another vial of potion, which she pocketed. Then she climbed out of the window and jumped down to the gardens. Only when she was safely away from the manor did she apparate.

Lucia emerged outside the leaky cauldron, her hands in her robe pockets. First, she removed the invisibility charm and then, with a confident gait that she had practised, she entered the pub and moved straight through into Diagon Alley. There, she navigated the streets, lingering a moment in front of Ollivander’s before heading down to Nocturn Alley. It did not take her long for her to find her quarry. Mundungus Fletcher was leaning on a wall, holding his robes together and whistling to himself.  
“Evening.” Lucia’s voice suited the caramel hair of her disguise. She stopped two paces from Fletcher and lifted one hand from a pocket in order to offer it for a handshake. “Mundungus Fletcher, isn’t it?”  
Fletcher did not accept the handshake immediately.  
“Yeah. Who’s asking?” He raised one suspicious eyebrow. The other was curious.  
“Bill Scamander. I work with Magical Creatures. You might have heard of Newt Scamander? I’m his distant nephew. Nice to meet you.”  
“Alright.” Fletcher had to hold his cloak closed with his other hand before he could reach out for the handshake. “What do you want?”  
“Ah. Well, that’s right. Down to business, of course. I have this.”  
He held out a bracelet. “Now, it’s not much to look at-”  
“Those are real diamonds ain’t they?” Mundungus was leaning into the lamplight now.  
“Well, Dragon heart stones, actually, but what is most impressive-”  
“Blimey. Now you mention it- Let’s have a closer look-”  
“Of course.” It was legillimency which caused Bill’s smile. “Have you heard, by chance, of Claudia Black?”  
It took a few moments for Mundungus to look up from the bracelet. “Yeah. Yeah I have. She was You Know Who’s-”  
“This bracelet belonged to her. You can see from the ‘CLB’ inscription here…”  
With a boozy movement, Mundungus peered over at the inscription. Both hands had come away from his cloak, and there was a gold chain dangling out from the gap.  
“Alright, alright. What do you want for it?” he began reaching into his cloak. Had he looked up, Bill’s knowing smile would have halted him immediately.  
“Well, I mean, I don’t know how precious something like this is… Not being an expert in antiques - If one could even call it that…”  
“Well, technically…” but it was at that moment that Fletcher looked up and became a bleached barnacle under the ultraviolet of those eyes. Bill gave a size zero smile.  
“There is, however, something very specific I’m looking for… Have you heard of invisibility cloaks?”  
Fletcher had the uncomfortable sensation that Bill already knew the answer, “Yeah. I got one of my very own. Had it since I was a lad, but I’d gladly-” At a look up at Bill, Fletcher reached into his cloak and pulled out the item in silence.  
“Mind if I have a look…?” Bill asked.  
“Go ahead.”  
Bill unfurled the cloak and began to scrutinise the stitching.  
“There’s a snag here…”  
“What? Oh, yeah, but they all have -em.”  
“Do they…?” The o seemed to roll downhill. Fletcher could not have said what was so particularly attractive about the way Bill observed the frayed left corner of the cloak.   
“You said you had this as a boy…”  
“Yeah, since I was a lad of about five-”  
“Don’t lie to me.” Bill looked directly into his eyes as he said this. Fletcher began to colour and the wares underneath his cloak made an uncomfortable clanging sound.  
“It was Mad-Eye-Moody’s but he don’t need it now.” Fletcher’s vowels were gruff.  
“Then it’s no good.” Bill handed the cloak back and his hand returned to his pocket. The Bracelet was still glimmering in the lamplight.  
“Wait- wait - nothing else? Nothing else that I could interest you in?”  
“Hm… Well… there is something… But it’s not a thing as such…”  
“Well, I’ll see what I can do…”  
“I want information about Harry Potter.” Bill actually lowered the bracelet into Fletcher’s open hand. “Only if you know something, of course…”

In the rusted light of the milky way, the sign for the Hog’s Head was swinging back and forth. From outside, one could hear the slurred voices of patrons and, every now and again, the tired voice of Aberforth Dumbledore, shouting, joking, but never laughing. Every now and again the door would open and the displays of each shop would be lit for a moment. Lucia hurried down the cobbled pathway in enchanted silence and used a revealing charm before drinking the second vial of potion. This transformed her into a boy of about seventeen years of age and he crept up to the back door of The Hog’s Head, used an enchantment to break in and went through the familiar lounge to the portrait of Ariana. There sounded the loud rattle of Goblin laughter. Lucia heard also the voice her uncle, so familiar yet so distant. For several minutes she listened to this voice then, eventually, approached the portrait with her hood pulled over her face.  
“Ariana…” she whispered it in a boy’s undeveloped voice. “I need to get into the castle.”

Snape was sat at his desk in the Headmaster’s office. Very little of this office had been changed since he had taken over as Headmaster, one exception being that there was now a portrait of Dumbledore above the pensieve. In most respects, the portrait was lifelike; but this representation of Dumbledore seemed to have a despondency about the creases of his eyes which had either not existed in the live Albus, or had simply been better concealed.  
“I won’t talk about it Albus.”  
Ten seconds endured and four words were written before Albus breathed on the embers of the conversation.  
“That it is difficult for you is understandable, Severus…”  
Severus dipped his quill into the inkwell but did not look up from his parchment.  
“Still, you must understand that this could affect everything. She was always unpredictable and I fear that being with her father-”  
Alerted to the presence of someone at the base of the spiral staircase, the portrait of Dumbledore changed the unsaid into a sigh. Snape put away his papers and waited with his hands folded under his chin, still without responding. Many of the portraits watched the door, but Albus watched Snape. Alecto Carrow entered.  
“Yes?” Snape sat back in his chair.  
“There’s been a disturbance on the first floor, Headmaster. I don’t know who did it, but some sort of curse is making any students who go there disappear, and then reappear in unexpected places within the castle.”  
“Get Flitwick to deal with it.”  
“I asked him already. He’s being difficult. Says he doesn’t know how. Of course, if you would just permit me to use the cruciatus c-”  
“It astonishes me, Carrow, that you cannot manipulate by any means other than the use of an unforgivable curse.” Snape’s voice had the texture of a bank note. “Leave. I will be with you in a moment.”  
“Very well Headmaster.” But even the least observant would have noticed the crude glance Snape received as she left. The paintings remained still, as if by some unspoken rule of conduct, until the Gargoyle had reverted back into place. Then Albus scratched the landslide of his nose.  
“Severus…”  
“Enough, Albus.” Snape had put his face into his hands, and had spoken from behind his palms.  
“You have been avoiding the subject of my Granddaughter for some time now.” There was a precise marbling of gentleness and perseverance in Dumbledore’s expression. He did not speak again for some time; time in which Snape was completely still.  
“I am certain something has happened.”  
“Forgive my curtness Headmaster but, as you are no longer living, I do not feel any great moral obligation to concede to your demand for information.” This, again, was spoken from above the gorges of his lifelines.  
“It’s not a demand, Severus.”  
Indiscernible whispering sounded from the other paintings. For some minutes, there was only the movement of their voices. Eventually, Snape raised his head and turned to Albus. There was a gap in his cloak that sliced up to his chest.  
“I cannot speak about Lucia Black.” he said, looking back toward the doorway before he had finished her name. “It is too painful.”  
“Why painful, Severus?”  
“Because…” he let his head fall back, ”Because I love her.”  
There was the sound of another person ascending the stairs. It took Snape a moment longer to compose himself this time, but when Amycus Carrow stepped into his office, his expression was commendably impassive.  
“Excuse me, Headmaster, there has been a disturbance-”  
“On the first floor. I am aware of it Amycus, and will deal with it in a moment-”  
“Oh no, I don’t mean that. I think we’ve got a stranger in the castle. The Baron said that he saw a student he didn’t recognise using advanced magic to completely pillage the Room of Requirement. He described the boy, but he doesn’t sound familiar. Then again, all the students look the same to me.”  
“What does he look like?” Snape stood and moved past him to the doorway. When he didn’t respond, Snape turned to him with an irritation that he had long since grown tired of concealing. “Well?”  
“This is unexpected news to you Headmaster?”  
“Of course it’s unexpected.” his cloak slapped the doorway as he made an impatient gesture with his hand. “Had I been expecting company, I would have informed the staff and the students.” Then he sighed, though he inhaled before he had finished it. “You really trust me that little?”   
It was a tail-flicker of a shrug. “The Dark Lord trusts you.” Amycus said, joining Snape in the doorway, “What does it matter what I think?”  
“What indeed.”  
Snape passed him and began to descend the stairs, without seeing the resentful expression that spidered over the face of Amycus.


	34. Chapter 34

As soon as the still disguised Lucia saw Snape leave his office with Amycus Carrow, she went to the gargoyle, spoke the password she had overheard, and climbed the steps into the office. The paintings were silent when she entered; they remained so as she went to the desk and began opening drawers in order to search through them. Several objects and papers fell on the floor, but she neither heeded the clamour, nor replaced the things which had fallen. Once she had finished searching the desk, she moved to the cabinet, which Albus noticed she opened much too dextrously to have encountered for the first time.  
“Young man!” it was Dippet’s portrait which finally had the courage, or perhaps the impatience, to speak. “Get out of that cabinet!”  
The boy started. His hands ceased their searching and his shoulders rose and fell before he looked up at the painting. It was the unperturbed, bitterly focused expression in his eyes that caused Dippet to uncomfortably fold his arms.  
“Out I say! You’re breaking and entering!”  
“I’m looking for a ring.” the boy said, returning his attention to the cabinet and spilling more papers onto the floor.  
“You will not find it in there.” This time it was Dumbledore who spoke. At the sound of his voice, the boy knocked a drawer onto the floor. The locust swarm of whispers was silenced. When the boy looked up, Dumbledore felt himself impaled on the storm wracked rockery of his eyes.  
“It seems you have forgotten the manners I taught you, Lucia.” The portrait of Dumbledore was still.  
“I haven’t forgotten.” Lucia’s male hands were clenching the cabinet. “I’ve never forgotten.”  
“Severus says you are with your father now.”  
“You always knew I would go.” The knuckles were colourless in their grip.  
“Yes, I knew… Although I hoped you would not.”  
“Yet you still didn’t take the potion.” and when those hands came away from the cabinet, the whole unit shook. “You didn’t take it.”  
“I had my reasons for that.”  
“Reasons.” In the body of another, Lucia spoke more defiantly than she would have in her own. “You left me alone.”  
“Not alone, Lucia.”  
“Completely alone. I had no one but you.”  
“You forget your uncle and S-”  
“I forget no one, Grandpa, they forget me.” She knocked an hourglass from his desk as she gestured at herself with unfamiliar hands. “Only two hours ago I heard uncle Aberforth speaking about the Dark Lord’s Daughter.” and there was bedlam in her laugh. “Legillemency leaves no hiding places.”  
“If you only spoke to him…”  
“You would not have said that if you knew the things he said of me.” Her voice quivered. “You chastise me for going to my father, but where else could I have gone when my own uncle is horrified of me? Tell me that.”  
“You could have gone to the Order.”  
“The Order? Don’t make me laugh. They would have locked me away with the guise of protection but, really, they would have been afraid of me also. They have always been afraid.”  
“Perhaps they are right to be afraid.”  
An ornament across the room exploded. Fragments of glass were beached across the desk.  
“You also.” And the haemorrhage in her voice was agonising. “I’m not my father! I’m not him! I’m not!” here she looked up toward the ceiling just as Snape had done. Her tears made lines down her throat.  
She began searching the drawers again, this time with a kind of frenzy. “You said the ring is not here. Where is it?” she slammed the drawer closed. “Where is it?”  
“I have given it away.”  
A snowstorm changed the borrowed face. “It wasn’t yours to give.” She spoke almost with composure. “It was my father’s. I need it back.”  
“There is another with more need of it than you.”  
“To whom did you give it?” she went to the pensieve and began to take down bottles. There was an unsettled, almost crazed steadiness to her movements. “Who did you think needed it so desperately?”  
“You will not find the answer in my memories.” An observer who did not know Dumbledore would have thought that the Mona Lisa expression on his mouth was a smile. But it could not have been, for he had just understood the way Lucia had replaced the last vial on the dais.  
“Of course…” she whispered, “Harry Potter.”  
“You are not to interfere with Harry.” There was urgency in his voice now. That he could get no closer to her than the frame of his painting did not stop him from outstretching his hand.  
“Of course, of course. He has the cloak too…”  
“Lucia, you must not hinder Harry. What he is doing is incredibly important-”  
“Killing my father, you mean?” she said it with the stillness of something dead. At first Dumbledore’s outstretched hand fell, then his mouth fell also.  
“Lucia, you must understand…”  
“No, I understand perfectly.” and she smiled, but it was a diseased, rotting smile. All of the paintings, all of them, were absolutely motionless. “You have been preparing Harry to kill my father his whole life, haven’t you?” she needed only glance at him to establish that it was so. “You never thought of another way?”  
“This is the only way to save countless lives.”  
“You’re wrong.”  
“You cannot interfere with this, Lucia, the prophecy-”  
“The prophecy is also wrong.” she turned to him, and her tears fell into the hollows of her collarbones, “I can save both.”  
There was the sound of movement from the gargoyle statue. Lucia gave a flicker of her left hand and the papers and other objects that she had dropped were returned to the drawers. Only once they were all replaced did she look up at her grandfather for the last time.  
“Both, Grandpa.”  
The doorway opened. Three wands were pointed at her chest, one of them Snape’s.  
“Stay very still.” he said, taking a step toward her disguised form. Lucia realised that she had not seen the expression with which he was looking at her before. On either side of him were the Carrows. As they approached her, Lucia used a negligible gesture to transfigure the gargoyle. It leapt from the stairway and struck both Carrows with its wings. Snape aimed a hex at Lucia, but this she repelled. The Gargoyle gave a roar as each of the siblings began to curse it. One misdirected hex connected with the ceiling and a block of stone almost struck Snape’s shoulder. He turned, startled by the near miss, and it only took this second of distraction for Lucia to knock him off balance and flee the room. Snape pursued her immediately, taking the stairs two at a time. He emerged into the corridor. To his right, he could see the boy as he rounded the corner. Snape started after him, aware of the sound of the Carrows behind him. At the castle entrance, Amycus passed him, then Alecto; he saw their cloaks disappear into the night, then he followed three sets of footprints as the rain pecked at his vision. His wand was out. There was a cry in the distance - whether from the boy, Amycus or Alecto was impossible to tell. As he neared it, he saw both Amycus and Alecto on their knees. Amycus was reaching for a wand which had rolled just out of his reach. The wand of Alecto was broken.  
“That brat used a shadow stilling charm.” Amycus said, “But I got him before he disarmed me. He shouldn’t have gotten far. Quick, pass me my wand…”  
Snape kicked the wand back into the shadow of Amycus, then continued down toward the school gates. It was a couple of minutes before he saw the distant figure of the intruder, though it seemed markedly smaller.  
“Immobulus!” he raised his wand to the body in the distance. The figure deflected the spell, but stumbled as they did so. Snape increased his pace until both of them were running. But he was faster. As he grabbed the intruder, they fell; the intruder under him, tears dropping into the grass.  
“Don’t look at me!”  
It was an agonisingly familiar voice. Two arms were raised over the face. Snape took both of them and pressed them into the ground; he already knew who they belonged to.  
“Lucia.” his hands were over her wrists. “What on earth are you doing?”  
“Please…” There was a cut under her left eye, and her silent tears fell into it. “Please, Professor, let me go…”  
“Not before you explain yourself.” there was a concern in his face that even Lily Evans had never witnessed. Lucia, with her eyes determinedly shut, did not see it either.  
“I can’t, the Carrows are coming-” her voice was weak. “Please.”  
He let go. For a moment, she stayed beneath him. Then she lifted herself with a small whimper that he did not understand immediately. Shouts of the Carrows sounded in the distance, searching for both him and the intruder. And then, in the reef of those shouts and Lucia’s retreating footsteps, he looked down at his robes. They were covered in blood.  
In his panic to stand, he slipped over. Lucia was slow from her wound — he easily caught up to her. He took hold of her by the waist and apparated to his quarters. There she struggled against him until he forced her onto the bed, where she began to bleed onto his bedsheets.  
“For God’s sake, stay still!” he had to take hold of her shoulders, “I can’t see where you’re injured.”  
“It doesn’t matter, I need to go-”  
“You’re going nowhere.” He undid her cloak with his teeth. A button came off and fell into the red pool on the floor.  
“If they find me here, we’ll both-”  
“Stop talking.” He put a hand over her mouth and began to search her body for the wound. It was a horrific half moon slice across her left side.  
“I need essence of dittany.” he said, standing and hurrying to his cabinet. “Stay where you are.”  
There was a thump behind him as she tried to leave once more. He was back beside her in an instant, lifting her onto the bed and then holding a glass above her.  
“Drink this.”  
For one long moment, the glass remained in the air between them.  
“If my father discovers that I’m gone, that I’m here-”  
“Drink.”  
“I can’t put you in danger-”  
Snape’s sigh, as he lowered the glass, was a frustrated one. Upon hearing it, Lucia looked down toward the bedsheets.  
“I’ll take it with me. When I get to Hogsmeade I’ll take it. I know how to heal minor wounds-”  
While she was speaking, Snape drank the potion himself. Before she had finished her sentence, he took her face in his hands, opened her mouth and tongued it in. The excess leaked from the corners of her lips. She spluttered as he came away from her, already readying his wand over the wound. With his left hand, he pushed her down against the bed.  
It took several minutes to close the wound; during this time Lucia stayed so completely still that, on more than one occasion, he touched her cheek to check that she was conscious. Having finished, he closed his eyes and rested his head against her chest. There was a dreaming heartbeat, and he stayed in it for some time, reassured by its tidal movement.  
“You shouldn’t have…” she whispered.  
Without moving away from her, he reached up to stroke her face. He felt her hand settle over his own.  
“You’re too good to me. I don’t deserve it.”  
Only now could he hear how exhausted she was. Gently this time, he took hold of her fingers.  
“That’s enough; you need to rest.”  
“If they find me here-”  
“They will not find you.”  
“Professor.”  
“You’re going to fatigue yourself.”  
“Professor Snape-”  
“Stop talking and rest.”  
“Do you think I am like my father?”  
He opened his eyes, looked at the young woman beside him, then gave just one, gentle expression.  
“No.”  
“But I’ve done something unforgivable…”  
“I forgive it.” he lifted his soiled hand to her forehead, which still had a mark from the earth upon it, then dipped his thumb into the pot of dittany beside him and smeared it over her cut cheek. “I forgive it.”  
“You’re too good.” All of the restlessness of the ocean seemed to exist in her eyes. “I wish I could be like you.”  
“No, Lucia.” Both of his hands were cupping her face now. Her tears soaked into his sleeve as he wiped away the dirt on her forehead. His heartbeat was painful in its rapidity. “I am no saint. There are things I have done that I am too ashamed to speak of. And I too have used an unforgivable curse. It cost you your grandfather, yet you forgave me.”  
“Of course I forgave you. You wouldn’t have done it unless you needed to.”  
“Lucia, did you know I made the unbreakable vow?”  
With the most spectral of movements, she shook her head.  
“I vowed to Narcissa that I would kill your grandfather.”   
Countless times, he had told her this in his dreams. He had seen her recoil from him, had seen her cry, had even guiltily witnessed her forgive him. Yet he could never have imagined the way she smiled at him now, with boundless love and a devastating tenderness.  
“I see…” and the smile persisted, but it was weaker now. “That explains why you were so distressed and why Grandpa…”   
Then her tears circled down her cheeks and onto his bedding.  
“Ahh…” her hands rose to her face and Snape sat up, too ashamed to look toward her. “I didn’t know at all.”  
“How could you know?” he could not help the tears that had begun to mottle his own cheeks. “How could I have told you?”  
“My grandfather chose you…”  
“It is not that simple. Had I known that you had healed him, I would never have-”  
“Professor, my Grandfather didn’t take the potion I made for him.”  
Snape looked toward her, his breath separate from himself.  
“He didn’t?"  
“No. He wanted you to live.”   
There was a kind of devastation in the way he looked away from the rose petal of her face. “It was a poor decision.”  
“No, I’m glad… that he…”  
His hand went to her lips.  
“Don’t say it.”  
But she spoke from behind his fingertips. “I’m glad you’re alive.” and he felt, after the gentle rise and fall of the words, unmistakably — her tentative smile. Tears joining the falling starlight of rain, he leaned over her. Her smile up at him had in it all the emotions she could not turn into words; it was the most beautiful thing he had ever seen. Gently, he reached down to wipe away her tears, though they were soon replaced by his own. As he made to remove his hand, she reached up and took hold of it.  
“You’re so kind, Professor.”  
“Stop talking and sleep.”  
“You are the most selfless person I know. ” With her eyes closed, she took a breath. “If I was Lily, I would have married you.”  
Too tired to open her eyes, she did not see the expression that passed over his face.  
“Lucia…”  
“I know she would love you for how you are protecting Harry.” her hand tightened over his fingertips, “Definitely, definitely, she would love you.”   
And as she sighed, tears made comet tails down her cheeks. Against her chest, Snape’s fingertips were shaking.  
“But even then, I would still love you the most.” here she tried to smile, but either the medicine or the wound had made her too weak to do so. “Undoubtedly, I love you the most…”  
“Stop talking and rest.” seven of his tears fell onto his arm as he lifted his hand to stroke her hair. “You are undoing my hard work on your injury.”  
“Sorry, sorry…” she leaned against his hand. “And thank you.”  
For a long time they remained beside one another, Lucia falling gradually asleep and Snape watching her do so. Eventually he ceased his stroking and observed her mermaid face. Her eyes were closed and her lips were parted. Slowly, he leaned over her.  
“Lucia….”  
When she didn’t respond, he leaned closer still. From here, he could feel the cloud of her chest, could count every one of her eyelashes. He observed all the curves of her beautiful face. Then his hand returned to her bottom lip.  
Certainly, there was a moment when he hesitated, when he came away from her slightly. He traced his fingers down to her neck, trying his best to keep them steady. Then he kissed her. His hand broke through the waves of her hair as he deepened the kiss, conscious of the sea swell of her chest against his own.  
When he pulled away, he had to wait for the bravery to look at her. In his mouth was the white taste of her, and it was so lovely that it made him feel sick. He could hear her breathing, but only when he glanced over at her did he realise that she was still asleep. His first urge was to kiss her again, but instead he sat up, placed an unsteady hand on his top button, and moved away from her. Three times he paced the length of the bed, each time with a different desire. On the third pace, he went to the drawer and unfolded a blanket. This he laid over her before apparating out of the room.


	35. Chapter 35

The scent of woodland and the rioting circus of pain - Lucia experienced both as she awoke alone an hour later. Her hand went to her wound and only when she had held onto it for some time did she notice the clock on the wall, the black quilt over her body and the leather book on the side table. The blanket that Snape had placed over her slipped down to her waist as she brought herself onto her elbows. For several minutes she remained there, before coming onto her arms and then onto her knees. Snape’s scent of bark had painted in oils over her skin and perhaps it was this that caused her to reach out and touch his pillow. Then, as the clock made its arthritic signal of the hour, Lucia stood much less steadily than she would have liked. The lamp rattled as she released the side table and took a step toward the door. There she used an invisibility charm and hesitated for the final time, turning around to see her professor’s room in its entirety, as tidy and ordered as she had always imagined it. She used a revealing charm and left.  
All the way to Ariana’s portrait, Lucia met no one; even the ghosts had taken their steamed bodies to more secluded parts of the castle. Even so, at each new corridor, Lucia used a revealing charm. At the back of Ariana’s portrait she did so once more but, before she could complete it, the painting opened.  
Aberforth was at the dinner table. At first, Lucia thought that he was playing a game of Wizard’s chess. Yet as he looked over at the space where she was standing, still invisible, she realised there were no pieces on the board. She dared not speak nor move. The painting rocked on its hinges.  
“There’s no point in hiding, I know you’re there.” Yet Aberforth did not look directly at Lucia, for he did not know exactly where she was. “Come on, out with you.”  
There was time for countless ideas, but he gave her none for a decision.  
“Lucia, out.”  
The painting closed behind her. Aberforth looked where he thought she was standing, but she had stayed closer to Ariana than he had anticipated; he had to turn toward her when she removed the invisibility charm.  
“There. That’s better isn’t it?” Two finished beer bottles were on the table before him. His hand went to the neck of the bottle he had finished most recently. “You never were the cowardly type.”  
He waited while squeezing that bottle neck. As the seconds passed, Lucia’s silence gained courage. Yet a single drip of condensation from the bottle finished it.  
“Well, aren’t you going to explain why you’re creeping around a house that was once was your own Lucia?”  
“I have nothing to explain.”  
“On the contrary. You’ve got a lot of explaining to do.” His hand came away from the bottle and he wiped the moisture onto his front. “Albus said you’d leave to be with You Know Who, but I never believed it.”  
“You believe other things.”  
She had said it looking down but, once she had finished speaking, she met his eyes with all the unrestrained, open-armed horror of her legilimency.  
“Stop that.” even his chair he angled away from her, “I saw what you were reading when you stayed here. Such Dark Magic I wouldn't have believed it if I didn’t know-”  
“That I am my father’s daughter.”  
The pause had in it the hiss of the unuttered ‘exactly’.  
“I just don’t understand it, Lucia. I thought you were better than that.”  
“I’m sorry to disappoint you.”  
He pushed the bottle away. “The things you’ve done - I haven’t words to describe them.”  
“You mean the things you believe I have done.”  
“There’s a difference?”   
“There is.”  
Here she leaned back against the wall, her face at the same angle as Ariana’s.  
“Is it power you want?” he asked it into the hollow of the bottle. “Is that why you went?”  
“No.”  
“What, then?”  
When she did not reply, he raised his voice. “I’m asking you what?”  
“Your safety, for one thing.”  
At this, he did risk a glance at her. Pale, fragile, but terrifyingly controlled, she was watching every movement of his pupils.  
“Don’t give me that.” but his voice was more feeble than it had been. “You know I would have protected you.”  
“You would have tried.”  
“I would have died trying.”  
“I know it.” Here she moved her body so that her back was flush against the stone. When he did not look away from the bottle, she tuned away from him.  
“But that wasn’t the only reason, was it?” and his voice echoed in the glass.  
“No.”  
“Well, what else? I deserve to know.”  
“I wanted to know my father.”  
He pushed the bottle away. “He’s a monster. Surely you’ve learned that by now.”  
Had he looked over, he would have seen her smile.  
“He’s many things.”  
“A murderous monster. I hope for the day that Potter ends him.”  
Only now did Aberforth turn to her, to her smile which had become something frightening.  
“And what about you?” his mouth barely moved. “Are you aligned with him? Or against him?”  
“Both.”  
“Both?” and his instinct was to reach for the bottle, but there was something about her expression that made him too afraid to move. “That’s ridiculous.”  
“It must seem so.”  
“This is not your fight. It…” but there was something in the way that she looked at him that stopped him from continuing.  
“I know what I’m doing.”  
“What about your future?”  
“What future, Uncle?”  
And, although there was equanimity in her face, her voice was chalky from the ash of a cremation. A single tear fell from Aberforth’s more expressive right eye.  
“It’s not too late. Leave him and return here.”  
“If I do that, one of them will die.”  
“It is better this way.”  
“Better for who?”   
Only now, only as she moved away from the wall, stooped from the pain in her side, did she show any vulnerability.  
“Lucia-”  
“I regretted it.” her body was in line with the bottle. “For months, I regretted that I left without saying anything. But now I see that it was the right thing to do.” She stumbled as she reached the entrance. “How many of the Order did you call?”  
His voice left his mouth as something unfamiliar.  
“It was for your sake.”  
There was an explosion as the back door was blown into the room. Lucia cast a shield charm over both her and Aberforth. Their eyes met for long enough for him to recognise her remorseful expression as she stunned him. His body slumped in the chair, which was then knocked backwards as a curse from outside rebounded into it. Through the door came Lupin. Lucia forced him back out with a water charm. A series of hexes came at her from someone at the window. These she had to block while also maintaining the water charm. One of them hit the beer bottle. It smashed so forcefully that shards of glass cut her right arm. Lucia sent an earth-rupturing charm along the floor that tore up the floorboards and knocked down several members of the order outside. Then she transfigured the bookcase into a Basilisk. This rose to guard the staircase as she ascended it. To her childhood bedroom she ran; it flashed a red colour as a stunning charm was aimed after her. Downstairs, the basilisk shrieked as it was destroyed. Lucia smashed the window with a curse before jumping out of it. She fell several meters, then took flight as her father had taught her.


	36. Chapter 36

For many months after Snape had returned to his room and found only the scent of orange blossom on his bedding, he did not see Lucia. He mentioned to no one that he had seen her, and believed that her time in the castle remained unknown to her father. She remained at Malfoy Manor until November, when she was moved away from there to a place that Voldemort did not name and no Death Eater visited. All news of her ceased, so Snape did not learn that in her new residence she spent many hours in her father’s company, developing spells with him, researching Dark Magic with him and becoming evermore understanding of him. How close the pair of them became, in that unknown fortress with only the mutual darkness between them, only Lucia and Voldemort would ever know.

A Tuesday at dawn. On the table there was a china teapot which was blue from the eyelids of the sky. Lucia was sat, as her mother would have sat, by the window in the library, overlooking the ocean. The iceberg of her skin was rising and falling from her watery clothing as her father approached her. He was not the kind of man to walk with anything but purpose, but on that morning he stopped as he entered the library, for the form of his daughter could have been the form of Claudia Black. Though Lucia had noticed his presence, she made the decision not to look away from the from the fading starlight reflected in her drink. For some seconds he watched his daughter as he might have watched her mother, and his emotions were so tumultuous that they would even storm incomprehensibly upon the dreams of Harry Potter.  
“Lucia.” it was as if he were testing the name. His daughter did not look away from her teacup.  
“Good morning.”  
“Your mother’s robes suit you.”  
From the doorway, he could see her head incline as she looked down at them.  
“Thank you.”  
“I am going away.” he said it while moving into the running tap of blue dawn-light, finally looking away from his daughter and into the sky beyond the window.  
“Would you like me to accompany you?”  
“No. You will remain here.”  
“Very well. For how long will you be gone?”  
“Long enough.”  
There was the tut of china as she replaced the cup into its saucer. Even the smell of tea was reminiscent of her mother.  
“I will wait patiently.”  
“Yes.” But he said it with none of the assent of the word.  
“Are you going to source the wand?”  
“Yes.”  
“What about Potter? Are you going to search for him also?”  
“I need not. The boy will die when we next meet.”  
Lucia was too careful to respond, and her father recognised it.  
“He will die.” The Dark Lord glanced at his daughter, who was stood upon a stepping stone in his rapids. “But you do not believe it.”  
“I think you should be careful, father.”  
He took hold of her shoulder in order to turn her around. The table shuddered as her chair moved, but her face in that elasticated dawn was too much for him. His hand came away from skin that would show a bruise in the next hour.  
“I have no need of care.” he took hold of his hand as if that were also bruised. “You should have faith in your father. None match my power.”  
He waited.  
“Your silence is an insult.”  
“It is not my intention to insult you, father.” in her lap, her hands tightened.  
“No, but you hide.” and, as he sat in the seat opposite her, she saw the redshift of his eyes through deep space.  
“I think you will misinterpret my words.”  
He reached out and took her chin in his hand.  
“Say them.”  
Her tendons moved beneath his fingertips as she swallowed.  
“It is not power that will enable you to prevail over Potter.”  
“Then what?” The question was a ballot box.  
“Remorse.”  
“Remorse?” his grip slackened, but then he reaffirmed it with more violence than before. “What ridiculousness. You would have me release all that I have stood for?”  
“No, not all. Not that which has always been most important to you, Father.”  
“She is dead.” He turned away from his daughter, but his hand remained on her chin.  
“And yet you want to live forever - I don’t understand it.”  
“I do not expect you to understand.” it was with a careless jolt that he released her. Beside them began the sunrise, though it happened behind clouds. “You are too preoccupied with the dead, my daughter, to understand its horrors.”  
“I think the one preoccupied is you.”  
“That is something she would say.” The whole of her reflection would not fit into the slits of his pupils. “Enough of this. Tonight I will depart. You are not to leave this place.”  
“As you wish.”

Lucia had been tracking Potter in the forest for a number of days. On the third day, she finally received some indication of his whereabouts from the threading of a blanket left under a tree. She followed him with a series of complicated incantations and, in snow-washed midnight, they led her to the frozen surface of a pond. Snowflakes fell against the back of her neck as she looked down at her reflection in the ice. The sound of footsteps happened behind her; in an instant she was hidden.  
A figure emerged through the trees. He moved to the pond with close-lipped steps, then dropped something through the ice so swiftly that Lucia could not make out what it was. Only when he stood back up was she able to see his face through the fingerprints of snow. And, despite the exhaustion under his eyes, despite the angle of his jaw, despite the unkept state of his hair, the sight of him marooned her; she watched as Snape hid himself as she had done. Through the Alzheimer snow, Lucia could not tell exactly where he had gone, or if he was alone.  
After some minutes, a patronus moved out into the night — the doe of Lily Potter, holed by the snow, kept alive by Snape. As it stepped between the trees, Lucia breathed so heavily into her hand that her breath spored out through the gaps in her fingers. In cold that she could no longer feel, she watched Harry as he followed the doe, undressed, then stood over the ice. The locket around his neck she did not miss, and when he jumped into the water but did not reappear, she stood, ready to go to him. Ronald Weasley was faster. He reached down into the pond and, as the pair remerged from the water with what seemed to be a sword, Lucia, only by chance, saw Snape move amidst the trees. This sight of him caused her to make a mistake that she would not forgive for the rest of her life: she left Harry and Ron and followed him. Her feet made neither noise nor footprints. As she moved over sabotaging tree roots and under dormant branches, she wondered when it was that she had become so good at being unseeable.  
He approached a clearing and turned to look behind him. Though she was invisible, his eyes lingered at the place she was standing. Between them moved snow with a mind: cunning, deliberate, social. She thought he would turn back around, but he seemed to be thinking of something. After using what she believed was the ineffectual homenum revelio charm, he continued to stare into the trees.  
“I thought I saw her…”  
She did not hear him say it — she saw his lips move, while his eyes remained on a place with nothing in it but the world. Her own lips shifted, but there was no voice to make the ‘Lily’. Even her heartbeat was voiceless as she eased closer to him. He used another ineffective detection spell, then gave what could have been a smile to the ground.  
Lucia continued to watch him. With a sigh that left him as something frostbitten, he pressed the buttons on his chest and turned away. Behind him, Lucia took a step forward. Her hood came away from her face and revealed such a beautiful, mortal expression that the snow could have mistaken her for its own.  
Once more, he looked back. Though she knew he could not see her, she felt his eyes grope for the place she was standing, felt them find her, felt them lose her.  
Then he disapparated. 

It was dawn when Lucia finally sourced the protective enchantment of Hermione Granger. In the quiet of snow’s finished musical, she cast an anti-apparation charm, then penetrated the shield. It was some seconds before Hermione emerged from the tent. Lucia disarmed her and used a shadow charm to keep her still.  
In seconds, both boys appeared. Ron was disarmed swiftly, but Harry proved more difficult. Seven consecutive spells he sent at her before she could retaliate. Yet soon he was disarmed and stilled also.  
“You have something I want.” she said it directly to Harry, who was struggling against the spell she had cast. It was as a response to something unsaid that she pulled down her hood. At the sight of her, Hermione whimpered.  
“We’ll give you nothing.” It was Ron who spoke. “You’re a traitor and a filthy liar.”  
“If I were, you would be dead now.” Lucia glanced away from them, then back again. “And that would not benefit any of us.”  
She took a step toward Harry.  
“Stay away from him!” Ron was beginning to churn up the earth with his resistance to the curse.  
“Your mistrust is misplaced, Ron.” Lucia took another step.  
“Harry, don’t do anything she asks.” Hermione watched snow settle against Lucia’s face. Above them, foliage buttoned and unbuttoned the sky.  
“I’ll not cooperate with you.” Harry’s shoulders were trembling with the force of his resistance. Lucia stopped before him and looked into the fly-trap of his eyes.  
“You destroyed the locket?” For the briefest moment she eyed Harry, before turning to Ron.  
“No, no. You did - with the sword of Gryffindor.”  
There was ferocity in the way Ron was thrashing against the enchantment now. Lucia’s hand rose to her neck as she stared at the ground with an expression that would have made even the worms writhe in their slumber.  
“You’re hunting his Horcruxes.” she said, returning her gaze to Harry. “Which ones do you know about?”  
“We’ll tell you nothing!” the flag of Harry’s voice flicked against the night.  
“You are already telling, Harry. I can see it in your mind: The locket, the ring, the diary. Ah, and you know about Nagini too, but that is all.” here she gave a sacrificial smile, “I still have time. Where is the resurrection stone, Harry?”  
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”  
“You received something from my Grandfather.”  
“There was nothing.”  
“Forgive me, Harry, but you are a poor a liar. Accio snitch.”  
“No!”  
The golden ball fluttered into her open palm. Lucia glanced at it, then back up at Harry.  
“You can’t open it? Look at me Harry Potter.” she spoke so softly that to Ron it seemed that Harry looked up out of instinct rather than compulsion from the imperius curse.  
“You’ll pay for this.”  
“I am already.” she said, touching the snitch to his lips and then reading the inscription that appeared. Her body became still and there was an undeniable, daggered beauty to the way she then released the snitch and let her head fall back.  
“I cannot undo this enchantment…” the snitched buoyed between them. “Unless I kill you.”  
“We won’t let you!”  
Lucia’s head tilted toward Hermione.  
“You really think me capable?” she said. There was a moment in which the only sound was the scraping of earth as Ron struggled. Lucia smiled as she took a step back from Harry.  
“We’ll meet again at the close.”  
Then she lifted her hand and all three of them collapsed, unconscious. Over each of them Lucia stood and performed a complex set of protective enchantments. Then she used the Obliviate curse before disapparating.


	37. Chapter 37

April. Blossoms on the windowsill quivered against the wind’s callouses. Lucia was knelt alone with three books beside her and a sheaf of parchment which was insected with her writing. Her wand lay centimetres out of reach; after leaning over to take it up, she stood and began speaking in an ancient language even her father would not have understood. In the ninth verse of the spell she made a mistake, so reread her notes, then began once more. There was the sound of a bell, and the room darkened. At the tip of her wand grew a form — the form of her mother. The glow of its skin in the darkness was all that distinguished it from the living. Lucia lowered her wand as her lungs mutilated the air.  
“Mother?”  
The form made to speak; shadows pooled over lips, leaving only an island at the centre of its mouth. From it came a horrific, rotting voice. Its jaw began to melt and the mouth opened impossibly wide. A substance began to ooze from the collapsed hoop of its lips then drip against the floor. Lucia had already begun speaking the ancient magic needed to return the form to the dead, but it was a dangerous spell which needed to be spoken continuously, from the centre of the markings she had etched on the floor. The form moved close enough to touch her. Skin began leaking from the bones as it reached for her throat and squeezed. The skull began to show, then the shoulders. And then it gave a repulsive shudder before disappearing.  
Lucia stood looking at the space where it had been. So accomplished had she become at hiding her emotions that even Snape would not have been able to tell that her stillness was a stillness of terror. Only after some time had passed did she move again, toward her handwritten notes, which she reread before crossing out and turning to certain pages in her book.

May second. Hogwarts. Her father was pacing within the Shrieking Shack, scattering moths and moving further away from Lucia and Lucius Malfoy each time he turned. As he usually did when feeling afraid, Lucius was looking at a split in the floorboards; Lucia, with her head upright, was so still that on more than one occasion the scattered moths alighted on her shoulder.  
“If I could, My Lord, if you would just permit me…”  
“Under no circumstances, Lucius. I do not care about your son; he chose not to leave with the rest of the Slytherin students — he chose not to join us. If he loses his life, that too will have been his choice.”  
Both Lucia and Voldemort noticed the spasm in the shoulders of Lucius. At the sight of it, one of them turned toward him, and one turned away.  
“Of course, My Lord,” Lucius did not look up from the woodlouse that was feeling his shoe with its antennae. “Then, might I suggest… instead of all this fighting, simply seek…” he did not dare move his shoe away from the woodlouse. “Seek the boy yourself.”  
“I need not go to the boy. He will come to me.” At the sound of Voldemort’s voice, the woodlouse began to crawl back between the floorboards. “Now, fetch me Severus. I need Severus.”  
“Very well, My Lord.”  
Lucius did not glance at Lucia as he passed, not even upon the accidental touch of their shoulders; his hand went to his arm, but he left the room without slowing. For some moments, under the moonlit cobwebs, Voldemort continued to pace. Then he turned to his daughter.  
“Leave also, Lucia. Join the fighting, wait — I do not care which. But do not stay.” and he turned away once more and seated himself in a chair beside the shattered window.  
“My place is by your side, father.”  
“I am not in the mood for arguments. Leave me.” Without looking at her, he took out the Elder wand and began twisting it between his fingers.  
Three times the wand rolled to his knuckles and back before Lucia moved to the door. There, she stopped.  
“What will you talk with Snape about?”   
Others would have thought it unwise to speak with their back to the Dark Lord, but Lucia knew him well enough to understand that the vulnerability was advantageous to her.  
“It does not concern you.”  
“Forgive me, father — it concerns me.”  
At any other time, Voldemort would have taken notice of such unprecedented honesty from his daughter. But now, he did not even look up from the ridge in the Elder Wand.  
“Leave, and do not return until I call for you.”  
“Will you kill him?”  
In the distance, movement of willow leaves sounded. Voldemort glanced at his daughter, and the rotating motion of the elder wand slowed.  
“Yes.”  
He was looking for a drop in her shoulders, a tightening of her cheeks, or a fall of her eyelids; she showed him nothing.  
“Call me when you have need of me.”  
And she departed, closing the door behind her then moving down the stairs. She had come almost the whole way down when she saw Snape, moving up toward her. At the sight of her, his expression of reluctant composure became more complicated. There was something about the way she looked down at him that made even the thought of Harry Potter diminish for a moment.  
“Lucia.” If it wasn’t for the emotion in his voice, it might have seemed that he had spoken simply to silence the silence.  
“It’s been a while, Professor. Are you alone?”  
“I am alone.” he paused, “Lucius has gone to search for his son.”  
“I see.”  
There were dozens of wooden slats between them, but it was not the distance that stopped Lucia from using her Legillimency. Snape took his hands out of his pockets.  
“Your father is expecting me.”  
“Yes, he is expecting you.” A draft from the attic twisted cobwebs into tendrils. “Where is Potter?”  
“We have not met for months, yet the one you ask about is Potter?”  
She could only see the edge of his smile through the darkness.  
“Professor.”  
“Yes?”  
“Do you remember our promise?”  
“I have not forgotten.” and the slowness of his voice hid his caution; he was looking at her with an expression she had never seen before.  
“Professor—”  
She was interrupted by a thump in the room above them. As she turned to it, Snape used the opportunity to move closer to her. When he was close enough to touch her, he took her hand in his own. The action surprised her; she turned to him, but her expression was not what he expected.  
“I have loved you more than everything my whole life, Professor.”   
She spoke these words with none of the emotion that she would once have uttered them — if it wasn’t for the shake in her hand, he would not have believed them. He squeezed her fingertips before she raised them slowly to his face, where he let them lie. A solitary tear left a trail of light down her cheek. Then she smiled, and her red cupid’s bow arrowed his heart. Before he could speak, she reached up and kissed him. The feel of her mouth stilled him. Yet when she pulled away, he reached for her with a recklessness akin to her own.  
“Stop.”  
“There is nothing left to say, Professor. I will protect Harry Potter.”  
“If you would just wait-”  
There was the noise of a door opening. Then, from the top of the stairs, Voldemort’s charcoal voice.  
“Severus.”  
Spiders crept back into crevices, away from the light from the now open door. Snape let go of Lucia, and she passed him so gracefully that she barely touched him at all, despite the narrowness of the stairs. He did not dare turn after her, but instead took hold of the banister, which came away from the plaster as a screw came loose. The clatter of it sounded down the wooden stairs; it reached the bottom step before Snape reached the top. Had he known what would occur within the next few minutes, he would not have let her leave; he would have told her everything he was presently attempting to zip into the body-bag; he would have returned her kiss with an unrestrainedness that he had never once allowed himself in his life.

Lucia only noticed Harry Potter and his friends enter the shrieking shack because she was looking down as she was leaving. Harry’s wand light was what exposed him: she saw it through the floorboards. Wordlessly, she cast a tracking charm on him, then began following him back through the shack. There was a cry. Lucia became very still. On the floor above, a door opened, then a single pair of footsteps sounded down the stairs. She used a disillusionment charm before hiding herself against the doorway as her father moved past her and out of the house. As soon as he was gone, she ran up the stairs, slipping on the twelfth. When she reached the room, Harry Potter and his friends were hurrying down the tunnel entrance. There was a moment when she almost pursued them - she even aimed her wand at Potter’s back. But then there was a splutter from the body on the floor, and it only took that sound for her to change her resolve. She knelt by Snape, located the source of his bleeding, and felt his weak heartbeat. With commendably steady hands, she took out a vial and tipped it into his mouth. The liquid pooled, then leaked out from his lips. The remaining portion she downed herself, then leaned over him and tried to administer it with her mouth. This, too, was futile. The vial smashed as she clutched him with her bloodied hands.  
“What should I do?” she touched his wound, “What should I do? If I save you, I might… I might not be able…”  
It was the slightest of touches — at first she could not tell whether he had touched her at all. But when she looked down at him, she saw he was holding onto her fingers.  
She slashed her chest with her wand. Blood collected at her wand tip, which she directed at the puncture holes on his throat. She then passed his envenomed blood through the wound on her chest. In the agony of Nagini’s venom, she lost her balance and fell against him, still murmuring the spell which would close his wound and save his life. She could hear his breath strengthen as she chanted, though it was not until she was certain he was stable that she ceased the spell and tried to stand.  
But she couldn’t. Her wand fell, then rolled through their shared blood to the door.  
“No.” her whole body shook from the venom. “Get up, get up.” Her bloodied handprint stained the wall as she tried to support herself.  
“I have to…”  
There was a thump as she fell again. Her vision blurred and her body began to shudder as Snape’s had done.  
“Father… Harry…”   
She did not realise that she was speaking in Parseltongue; twice more she tried to stand and each time she fell again. In desperation, she pulled out a vial and tried to drink it, but coughed before she could swallow. Blood spilled from her lips and the vial tumbled away from her fingers. As she lost the strength in her neck, her face fell toward her professor. Had she been able to speak, she would have said his name.


	38. Chapter 38

It was a sterile light, a light which had never entranced insects or shown vermin the way. When Lucia opened her eyes, she saw only this light, in five distinct lines along the ceiling. After a time there were voices to accompany the light. Almost instinctively, she attempted to move an arm, but this, too, she was incapable of.  
“No, come away Ben, it’s too dangerous to be that close to her.”  
“Surely she’s too weak right now?”  
“Don’t assume - the ministry gave us clear instructions. Stay away from her and I’ll contact Shacklebolt.”  
“She’s saying something. What's she saying?”  
“I don’t know - it’s parseltongue I think. Come back a bit further.”  
Footsteps sounded. Lucia made to incline her head, though she could barely do so.  
“She’s looking at me - what should I do?”  
“Just stay behind the shield while I go and get Shacklebolt.”  
Lucia closed her eyes.  
“Severus Snape.” she said.  
“Stay where you are.” the male said, “There will be someone to attend to you shortly.”  
Lucia swallowed and reopened her eyes. The figure standing some distance from her was watching her with almost excessive diligence. It was the way he held his clipboard that indicated that he was a trainee, perhaps only a year older than her. She maintained eye contact with him until the duty doctor returned with Shacklebolt. The shield was removed, and the duty doctor approached her to check her vitals. As he moved above her, she felt his discomfort with her legillimency.  
“I will not hurt you.”  
The doctor did not look down, but continued to make notes on his parchment. “I recommend that you stop talking.” he said. At the end of the room, Shacklebolt had folded his arms. The trainee was shifting his clipboard from his left side to his right.  
“Please, can you tell me about Severus Snape?” Lucia attempted to reach up to him. The doctor regarded her hand, then stepped out of her reach.  
“There will be plenty of time for discussion at a later stage.”  
“What about Harry Potter?”  
His quill slowed.  
“Do not make me repeat myself.”  
“Lord Voldemort?”  
“Voldemort is dead.” It was Shacklebolt who spoke from across the room, his arms still folded. The trainee passed his clipboard to his right arm at the same moment that Lucia’s tears began to form.  
“And Harry Potter?” Lucia spoke it to the doctor’s sleeve, for she was no longer strong enough to turn her head. “Is he alive?”  
Several tears fell onto her pillow in the time it took Shacklebolt to tell her:  
“Yes.”

It was a number of weeks before Lucia was strong enough to sit up and, during this time, she was left alone in the hospital room except for when visited by a doctor or nurse, always accompanied by a senior Auror. Although she was always unfalteringly polite to the doctors and nurses who visited her, they would speak to one another of how the gentleness and amiability of The Dark Lord’s daughter filled them with terror. None who came to her would answer any of her questions; she soon realised that they avoided her conversation not for the sake of her health but because they were afraid. So she ceased asking about Snape, and began not to look at them as they entered. Often, they would see her staring at the wall, a carousel of tears falling with near absurdity from an impassive face.

It was a Monday morning, but Lucia did not know it, and none who attended her would believe she cared. When a man, accompanied by two Aurors and a nurse, entered her room in formal robes, she did not look toward him. Without waiting for the permission of the doctors, Aurors or Lucia he conjured himself a seat beside her.  
“Miss Black.” The man sat down and began to unclasp his cloak. He waited for Lucia to respond, but she only watched him with the same obscure expression that the nurses had often gossiped to one another about. His cloak fell against his chair as he shrugged it off and entwined his hands on his lap.  
“My name is Daniel Rogers. I work in the Department of Magical Law Enforcement.”  
Lucia smiled down at the bedsheets. It was what Rogers would later call a ‘beguiling smile’, and it was her first in months.  
“Nice to meet you, Mr Rogers.” She said it with a sparseness of movement that he could not help but find attractive.  
“Likewise. I would have come sooner but I’ll be frank with you Miss Black — there has been a lot of difficulty surrounding your case. You are notorious at the least.”  
“Because I am Tom Riddle’s daughter.”  
“Yes.” he elasticated the word, having noticed the use of her father’s birth name. “But first and foremost: there are several charges against you.” he waited for some expression from her and, when she gave him none, continued less loudly than he had begun. “It’s true what they say, you really don’t use much expression.”  
He glanced over at the Auror on duty, an act he had been trying to refrain from since his entrance; when he turned to Lucia, he saw she was smiling once more.  
“Listen, Luica — I can call you Lucia, can’t I? — you are in a very difficult position. There was a certain amount of anger that you had been brought to St. Mungos at all; there were many who would have preferred you dead.”  
She nodded so gently that Rogers did not see it.  
“Many believe that exposing you to information about the wizarding world at present is a mistake. We in the department have been arguing about how much information we should be presenting you with; it is the desire of many of my colleagues that you know nothing, but you are an intelligent young woman, and I believe that the information I have might be advantageous to us both. You have them don’t you? Things you want to know…” he paused. “Aren’t you interested in Harry Potter, Lucia?”  
“He defeated The Dark Lord and is in good health.”  
There was a silence in which Rogers tried to decide whether she had been asking him or telling him. “That is correct.”  
“There is nothing else to know.”  
“Nothing indeed.” his foot tugged against his cloak and pulled it halfway off the chair. He did not turn to replace it. “You don’t want to know about your Great Uncle, then?”  
“I have heard he is alive and well.”  
“Yes.”  
“What else should I want to know, Mr Rogers?”  
“Well…” Rogers crossed his left leg over his right, “Why he hasn’t contacted you, or…”  
“Forgive me, but I know why he has not contacted me, Mr Rogers.” and as she spoke, she turned the full disparagement of her gaze on him. For some moments there was silence. Then Rogers looked toward the Aurors again.  
“You understand then, the situation you are in.”  
“I understand perfectly. The Dark Lord’s daughter, aligned with her father’s puritan ideals, conspiring against Harry Potter and the Order. Betrayer, torturer—”  
“Murderer.”  
She pushed back against her pillows. “Murderer.”  
“Be careful what you say: that could be taken as a confession.”  
He had expected her to resist the statement, but her shoulders relaxed, and she closed her eyes with a disconcerting balance between vulnerability and dangerousness.  
“Who did I murder?”  
“Miss Charity Burbage.”  
Her hand went to her forehead; through the slats of her fingertips, he couldn’t distinctly see what her expression was.  
“You have evidence?” she asked it with her hand still over her eyes.  
“Circumstantial mostly, and one eye witness, but certainly, there is enough for a conviction. It would be wise to give a confession in order to reduce your sentence.”  
“I see.”  
“There’s more: Garrick Ollivander is testifying against you for torture.”  
“He has a right to do so. I used the cruciatus curse on him.”  
In the seconds that passed, he had the disconcerting realisation that Garrick Ollivander might have seen just this expression from her during his torture.  
“And you confess to that, Lucia?”  
“I confess.”  
Daniel glanced over at the Auror by the door, who gave a nod.  
“You are accused of severely injuring multiple muggles.”  
And though she reestablished eye contact with him, to this Lucia did not reply.  
“Am I to take your lack of response as a no-comment?”  
“You believe I did it.”  
His heel squashed his cloak sleeve upon itself.  
“I believe you did all you are accused of.”  
“Then it is pointless to argue against you. I have no evidence that I did not.”  
“Right. You are confessing, then?”  
“I am neither confessing nor denying.”  
He scratched his left eyebrow, then noticed his cloak was on the floor. While he bent to pick it up, he was unable to maintain eye contact with her, and it was only once he reestablished it that he realised that she was watching him with horrifying shrewdness. He glanced back over at the Aurors by the door, then readjusted his cloak on the back of his seat before continuing.  
“Let’s start from when you left Hogwarts and joined the Dark Lord… a little over a year and a half ago?”  
“I do not know today’s date, Mr Rogers.”  
“Ah. It’s December 1998.”  
“Then yes, I joined my father a year and a half ago.”  
“Albus Dumbledore bequeathed you a number of things in his will. He anticipated that you would stay and fight with the order?”  
“He hoped I would.”  
Mr Rogers sat back and his cloak began to slide off his chair once more.  
“Right. When did you decide to join your father?”  
“The night my grandfather died.”  
“By grandfather, you mean Albus Dumbledore.”  
“Yes.”  
“Albus Dumbledore is not your true grandfather.”  
These last words were of a liquorish consistency. Had he been better acquainted with Lucia, he would have noticed the intensifying colour on her cheeks as the only indication of her emotion. As it was, he thought only that she was unhelpfully unexpressive.  
“So you went to your father the night Dumbledore died. Why?”  
“There were many reasons.”  
“Go on.”  
She took a long moment to scrutinise him.  
“I can’t stress enough how important it is that you tell me, Lucia.”  
Still she watched him, this time with a smile.  
“Either way, I am going to Azkaban.”  
“You think I won’t believe you?”  
“I know it, Mr Rogers. Your left hand has gone to your chin three times now.”  
His hand came away from his face.  
“Then take Veritaserum — tell me under its influence.”  
“A superficial solution since one’s own memories can be altered. I sustain, Mr Rogers, that you will not believe me.”  
With a sigh which sounded more impatient than he felt, he uncrossed his legs, then crossed them the other way.  
“What about if I give you information about Severus Snape?”  
Daniel was certain that he had seen Lucia’s chest halt as her breathing paused. Then she looked up at him with a salt-water motion that astonished him; he could almost hear the hush of her legilimency against him, pooling in the rockery of his mind, dragging his seaweed-secrets out into her ocean.  
“You have been keeping it from me on purpose.”  
Here he actually gave a tumbling, dwarfish smile.  
“You are a high profile criminal, Lucia.”  
His smile wilted under her chemical gaze.  
“That is not the reason you have been keeping it from me, Mr Rogers.”  
His mouth had become dry, yet he did not swallow — even swallowing seemed all too revealing before the gaze of Lucia Black.  
“Listen, Lucia: tell me what I want to know, and you’ll have the information about Severus Snape.”  
“Very well.” she leaned back against her pillow, and the way her hair waved over her cheeks would have made men less observant than Daniel conscious of how enticing she was. “I went to my father because it was the best way to save the people I cared about.”  
“Who were they?”  
“Aberforth Dumbledore, Severus Snape and Harry Potter.”  
“Harry Potter?”  
“Yes, Mr Rogers. Harry Potter.”  
His right hand returned to his slipping cloak.  
“Right.” He pushed the cloak back. “You’ll understand that this sounds dubious: Harry Potter himself denies any real connection with you even before you joined your father.”  
“Of course he does. We were not close. I did not try to protect him for his own sake.”  
The cloak came away as soon as he moved his fingers.  
“Then why?”  
Her smile at him had in it a dizzying chaos.   
“For Serverus Snape, Mr Rogers.”  
And while he understood how important it would be to watch her as she spoke, he had to turn away. He made to take hold of his chin, then instead rubbed his palms along his thighs. “So you went to you father in order to assist Snape in protecting Harry Potter?”  
“Initially, yes, though even Professor Snape did not know it.”  
“Initially? You changed your mind?”  
“Yes.”  
“How so?”  
“Three important people became four, Mr Rogers.” and there was something unutterably beautiful in the way she turned away from him.  
“What do you mean?”  
“I learned to love my father.”  
The individuals in the doorway shifted.  
“Love him? Voldemort?”  
“With all my heart.”  
His hand went to his nose and he exhaled onto his knuckles; Lucia’s tide of omnipotence seemed to be beaching him.  
“Despite his evil deeds?”  
“Despite everything.” Here her head rose slightly, so that she seemed to be looking at him from a height.  
“So the muggles, Charity Burbage, Garrick Ollivander — they were the means with which you got your father to trust and love you?”  
“Not love. My father never loved me.” She looked back at him with an expression that Rogers chose to interpret as demeaning, “But I wanted him to trust me, yes.”  
“Why?”  
“I wanted to save him.”  
“Save him from being killed by Harry Potter?”  
“No, Mr Rogers, I did not want to save my father’s life. I wanted to save his soul.”  
This time, Daniel’s cloak made a sound as it fell from his chair.  
“There is no way to save a soul that has been split by murder.”  
“Forgive me, but you are wrong. If one feels remorse, one’s soul can be reformed.”  
“You thought you could make the Dark Lord remorseful?”  
“Not me, Mr Rogers. My mother.”  
“Your mother is dead.”  
“I am aware of it.”  
His hands slid up to his hips.  
“Then, you can’t possibly mean—”  
“Correct: I intended to bring my mother back from the dead.”  
His voice was bleached. “How?”  
“I resorted to necromancy.”  
Many years later, Daniel would distinctly remember feeling unable to breathe at this moment. It was all he could do to murmur:  
“You realise the sentence in Azkaban for such a thing—”  
“I already know that I will spend my life in Azkaban. I have been prepared for it ever since I left Hogwarts last year.”  
Rogers tapped his thighs with his palms.  
“Did the Dark Lord know what you were planning?”  
“He knew I was obsessing myself with necromancy, though he did not know why.”  
“Then you were unsuccessful.”  
“I was unsuccessful.” There was something Saturnian in her voice, “But there was still the resurrection stone.”  
The next question he asked with the stillness of his restless hands.  
“Harry Potter had it, Mr Rogers.” and here she made a strange expression that he could not identify. “But I could not take it until he was prepared to die.”  
“Then you…”  
There was a fleeting rumble across her bottom lip.  
“No, Mr Rogers, I loved Severus Snape too much to let Harry Potter die.”  
It was only when he saw something fall from her cheek that he realised Lucia was crying.  
“On the night of May 4th… Did you go to find the stone?” he had leaned forward without realising it.  
“Yes. I found Harry Potter, but I did not get the chance to take the stone, and I think you know why.”  
Daniel’s mouth formed the name, but there was no sound to it. In the doorway was movement which neither of them heeded.  
“I was supposed to let him die.” she said, “But when I saw him, I couldn’t. I just couldn’t.”  
Daniel’s hand went to his face, perhaps to stop it from going to hers. “There was unicorn blood where we found you.”  
“Yes, I tried to drink it, but I couldn’t swallow.” She had not moved to wipe the tear which was traversing her bottom lip.  
“You would have gone that far to live?”  
“I would have gone that far to save Harry Potter and my father.”  
Only now did she bring her hands to her face; there was no melodrama to the action, they simply rose. Rogers rubbed his legs as she silently wept, and only after a motion from the Aurors at the entrance did he still his hands and sit up.  
“I think you deserve to know about Severus Snape, Lucia.”  
Her hands came away from her face as she looked up at him.  
“He was found beside you, with a serpent’s bite wound on his neck. The venom from Voldemort’s serpent should have killed him, but it is believed that you intervened by giving him your own blood — the resistant blood of a Slytherin.”  
It was the slightest of nods.  
“However, you were a little late, Lucia. By the time you got to him, the venom had already wreaked havoc on his body.”  
“Yes, but I used a spell to—”  
“Oh certainly, without your magical intervention, he would still have died.”  
Lucia said something that he did not hear. For a moment, he contemplated asking her to repeat herself.  
“Lucia, Severus Snape is in a coma. The doctors do not know if he will ever awaken.”  
Her inhale made a sound as her hands contracted against her face. Several strands of hair fell over her knuckles as she leaned forward.  
“Lucia.”  
It was as if his voice were the far-off winter. She let her hands fall, but her eyelashes were hiding her eyes.  
“Lucia.”  
“I should have let him die.”  
She met his eyes. With a kind of helplessness, he reached out a hand, and then brought it back to his chin.  
“You should know that recovery seems unlikely but…” there was an uncanny sound as he began a word and then halted. “There is still some hope.”  
“Yes.” and she smiled with such composure that for a moment he disbelieved her tears. For five seconds he questioned her integrity as she maintained this dignity, then he watched as she began to sob with almost ferocious unrestrainedness. It was a nurse who approached them both, ushering him away. At the door, a doctor also passed him and went to Lucia.   
“Let’s go.”   
He only heard the ‘go’, before his colleague put a hand on his back and guided him outside.


	39. Chapter 39

February fourteenth. Witches and wizards took off frosted hats as they entered the courtroom. Rogers was sat with his colleagues, close to the front. In his hand was a copy of Lucia’s testament as it had been given on the date he had returned to St Mungos for her formal interrogation. He had kept a copy with him ever since that day, contrary to the advice of his manager. Over a hundred times he had read it, and each time the memory of her almost unbelievable impassivity had become one of hesitations and embellishments. Now he was tapping this document against his thigh as witches and wizards took their seats around him.  
“They’re going to have to use an extension charm on the courtroom.” His colleague Simon Greenwell was sat on his right, looking over at Cornelius Fudge with distasteful conspicuousness. “I’ve never seen anything like it.”  
“They had no right to open this trial up to the public.” The tapping document of Rogers lost its rhythm. “They didn’t do it with any of the other trials.”  
“It’s hardly the public. Look — here’s Aberforth.”  
There was a hush amongst the attendees as Aberforth Dumbledore took a seat beside Arthur Weasley.  
“Refused to testify, you said.” Greenwell had leaned to the left in order to keep Aberforth in sight. “Yet he hasn’t refused to watch.”  
“He probably wants to see her convicted. He’s made it clear enough that she is nothing to him.” Rogers began tapping his document once more.  
“I feel sorry for the girl. Did you hear the things Skeeter reported about her? I don’t want to repeat them even if she is a murderer.” Greenwell had not turned back around.  
“She isn't a murderer.” Rogers was watching Kingsley Shacklebolt approach the stand.  
“This is why you were taken off the case.” Greenwell said, “Too emotionally involved.”  
The room silenced as Shacklebolt stood on the podium and introduced the charge against Lucia. Then he took a seat at the side of the podium and Lucia was brought into the defendant’s chair. Her eyes moved out to the attendees with an expression of neutrality which the Daily Prophet would describe as ‘condescending’. If she noticed her great-uncle, she did not give any indication of it. She sat down and looked at Shacklebolt as he introduced her and asked her whether she understood the charges, to which she replied that she did.  
“Bring forth Garrick Ollivander.” he said. There were whispers in the crowd as Ollivander was led into the room, though many of those in attendance were watching not him, but Lucia. There was, as some would later remark, a bravery and a stateliness to her steadfast shoulders and slowly blinking eyes. Not even her eyes moved as the wandmaker sat; had they done so, she would have seen him regard her with a terror which others would soon sensationalise.  
“Mr Ollivander, can you describe for the Wizengamot the torture you endured under Lucia Black?”  
Ollivander nodded, yet he did not begin speaking for some time.  
“Terrible.” There was only strength in the first letter. “Terrible… I could never truly describe…”  
“Can you relate for the Wizengamot how the event took place?”   
“The Dark Lord was there, and there were others…”  
“Which others, Mr Ollivander?”  
“Bellatrix Lestrange, Antonin Dolohov and Severus Snape. They brought me up from the cell I was in and placed me in a room with a fire. You Know Who said there was someone he wanted me to meet.… Then Miss Black entered, and when he told her to use the curse she did not even use a wand, just said the word and I…” His voice became only breath. “I felt unimaginable pain.”  
There was an intensifying knife-edge colour on Lucia’s face. Still she did not move.  
“And you are certain it was Miss Black who used the curse.”  
“Certain, certain. I remember begging…”  
Lucia turned toward the wand-maker. Their eyes met.  
“And afterwards…” He curled himself against the chair. “There was something afterwards…”  
“What happened afterwards, Mr Ollivander?” Shacklebolt tilted his head toward the defendant.  
“I don’t…” Ollivander looked back toward Lucia, and now there was some buoyancy to his expression. “No, nothing. There was nothing.”  
“Thank you, Mr Ollivander,” Shacklebolt stood and beckoned for Ollivander to be taken away. The witness stepped out of his chair, then stilled and looked over at Lucia once again. Her observation had been unceasing, yet it seemed to phase into a crescent as their eyes met once again.   
“Dittany.” he said. Lucia’s eyes widened, and those watching would have seen her inhale. “I think…”  
“Sorry, Mr Ollivander?”  
“I think I… can’t be sure but I… remember the taste… and dirt on her forehead…”  
“Mr Ollivander, you must speak clearly and concisely so the Wizengamont take account of your evidence.”  
“I just remember the dirt.” Ollivander squashed his hands together. “Just the dirt and…”  
Already, the Auror had his hand on Ollivander’s back.   
“She asked me to forgive her.”  
Greenwell had come out of his seat. His arm was halving Rogers’ view of Lucia, who had closed her eyes and was sat without moving. Shacklebolt nodded to the scribe; she dipped her quill and punctuated her sentence.  
“Is that all, Mr Ollivander?”  
“Yes. Yes, that’s all.” Ollivander was escorted out and murmurs slithered after him. It was only when she swallowed that Rogers became aware Lucia was clenching her jaw.  
“The Wizengamot calls forth McNair.”   
The wingbeat of whispers intensified. McNair was led into the room and, when he sat down, he looked into the faces of the wizards on the front bench with what appeared to be an expression of supplication.  
“McNair, can you describe for us the murder of Charity Burbage?”  
His lips curled out as he nodded.   
“It was evening on the 14th of November. The Dark Lord had us in a small room in the Malfoy Manor.”  
“Who?”  
“Me and Bella and Lucia. And the captive Charity Burbage.”  
The scribe glanced up at Shacklebolt before writing.  
“Continue.”  
“Well, he had been torturing the poor woman pretty bad. Hours and hours of crucio. Lucia seemed a little uncomfortable the whole time, but the Dark Lord, he wanted to toughen her up.” McNair rubbed his tongue against his left canine. “And eventually, he said that he wanted the lady dead. Who’s gonna do it he asked, and of course Bella offered right away, but he was waiting for Lucia wasn’t he? And when she offered—”  
“What did she say?”  
“She said something like if you want I’ll do it.”  
“And what did Voldemort do?”  
This time McNair paused. There was a moment of silence in which he scratched his elbow.  
“He just nodded.”  
“And then what happened, Mr McNair?”   
“Then she used the Avada Kedavra curse and that was that. No wand or anything.”  
“A damned lie!”  
The whole courtroom seemed to turn at once to Aberforth Dumbledore.  
“How can you let this trash stand there and lie to save himself? How can you sit there and say nothing? Didn’t I teach you better than that?” the ruined rockery of Aberforth’s forehead tumbled as he faced his niece. “Tell them the truth, Lucia. Tell them where you were that night!”  
Lucia tried to collect herself before the courtroom turned to her, but she did not do so in time.  
“You are in contempt of court, Mr Dumbledore. I recommend you sit down and remain silent before you are removed.”  
“Lucia!” Aberforth slammed his fists against the railing. “Lucia, tell them!”  
“Mr Dumbledore, I ask you to sit down.” The gold threading in Shacklebolt’s cloak rippled as he motioned with his hand. But Aberforth did not sit. Even from the front of the room, Rogers could see him shaking.  
“You were with me that night, Lucia. At Hogsmede. Tell them!”  
Shacklebolt whispered something to the Auror beside him, then shook his head at the scribe, who crossed out what she had written.  
“Tell them what you said to me. Tell them who you wanted to save.”  
“Mr Dumbledore…”  
“Tell them you wanted to save Harry Potter, Lucia!”  
Two Aurors came beside him and tried to take hold of his arms. He pulled himself away from them and looked once again at his niece.  
“Tell them that you went to the Dark Lord to save my life.” He seemed to want to do a great many things at once, for his arms went to the railing, then to his side, then batted away the Auror approaching him. “For God’s sake, you won’t get another chance!”  
Witches and wizards were displaced as Aurors forcibly removed Aberforth from the courtroom. It took Shacklebolt five minutes to settle the Wizengamot, during which time McNair’s expression of supplication turned to something less patient.  
“Let the Wizengamot note that interruptions have been cleared from the record. The trial will continue.” Shacklebolt said. “McNair, have you anything else to add to your testament?”  
“Nothing, Minister.”  
McNair was dismissed, and two other Death Eaters described Lucia’s mutilation of a group of muggles in a muggle pub with reasonable synchronicity. They were dismissed, and the Wizengamot were reminded of the charges before Lucia was permitted to give her own testimony. She did not speak for many minutes, during which time Rogers crumpled his document beyond recognition. Then she began to describe her involvement with the Dark Lord in more detail than she had ever yet recounted. She spoke of her search for her father’s ring; how this had led her to Hogwarts on the fourteenth in disguise; how she had caused a disturbance and used it to move into Dumbledore’s office. After affirming that the paintings would be able to recognise her disguise, she went into detail about the night she had seen Harry Potter by the lake and, crucially, told the Wizengamot his exact location, and what he and his friends had been wearing. She described the protection charms she had cast on them, explaining that there should still be residue of them, discoverable with a counter charm. During the proceedings, she mentioned her professor many times, recounting specifically the things he had done to protect Potter with as much evidence as she could. Some observers would later argue that Lucia’s testimony had not been done for her own sake, but for the sake of a professor who might never awaken. The Wizengamot were given time to discuss, and during this time she was sent to a room with a Dementor guarding the entrance. Hours passed.

“Lucia Black, the Wizengamot have called you to deliver your verdict.”  
She stood a little unsteadily, keeping her hands on her knees until she was confident in her ability to walk. At the door she stopped. There was no noise from the courtroom, only the vacuuming breath of the Dementor.  
“Lucia Black, the Wizengamot awaits you.”  
It was a steady hand that Lucia placed on the door, and it was Snape she thought of as she moved through it. There were hundreds of faces in her direction, and the light unified them all. She seated herself, and even the walnut of the table seemed colourless under that scrutinising white. Her hands tightened. There were no lines on them.  
“Has the Wizengamot reached a verdict?”  
“We have, Minister.”  
“On the torture of Garrick Ollivander, how does the Wizengamot find the defendant?”  
“We find the defendant guilty.”  
Whispers sounded.  
“On the use of Necromancy, how does the Wizengamot find the defendant?”  
“Guilty.”  
“On the charge of the mutiliation of muggles, how does the Wizengamot find the defendant?”  
“Guilty.”  
The whispers became voices.  
“On the charge of the murder of Charity Burbage, how does the Wizengamot find the defendant?”  
“We find the defendant guilty.”  
The swarm of voices was the only thing Lucia could perceive. Even her hands disappeared as Aurors took hold of her on either side and began to force her through the crowd. Shacklebolt was saying something about the duration of her sentence.


	40. Chapter 40

He had never experienced such darkness. When he first begin ascending the stairwell, he’d taken out his wand in order to create a light, only to discover that his powers were suppressed.  
“Don’t you have a goddamn a candle or something?” he groped for a banister as the Dementor glided behind him. The stairs were thinner than his feet, and he stumbled more than once while ascending the fifteen flights. At each new level, he heard the sounds of prisoners. Some were groaning, some sobbing, some coughing. On particular levels, the stone levelled out and, beyond the flatness, there remained an inky soundlessness. Through three of these levels Aberforth climbed, until above him appeared the the gentlest of lights. As he neared, he recognised the outline of some sort of creature. Fluctuations of silver light caused patterns on its flank and, even from several steps below, Aberforth could see its eyelashes. The doe looked down at him, then moved away from the top of the stairs into the corridor beyond. The air seemed to crust with frost as it departed. Aberforth followed it into a passage surrounded on either side by bars. From its distant light, he could see the shadow of the bars on the back walls; there was nobody in any of the cells he passed. He looked back and realised the Dementor had remained at the stairs. The doe halted at the end of the corridor. He peered into the cell where it had stopped. In the corner was a form that he could not clearly make out. There was an arm around a knee, the hand loosely holding material of some sort. Veiling the face was a seascape of hair; each time the doe moved, light slipped across it.  
“Lucia…?” Aberforth's voice was shaking. The doe turned to him. “Is that you in there?”  
“Yes.”  
It was as if, to Aberforth, the word bled into the silence which followed. He crossed his arms and glanced away from the form in the cell.  
“Is that your patronus?”  
He saw movement in the cell — perhaps a nod. The patronus approached him, then nudged his balled hand.  
“I didn’t know that you…”  
It was watered down hesitation.  
“—could to do ‘good’ magic.” Lucia finished.   
Something dripped from the ceiling onto the stone beside him. There was a pause.  
“Look, Lucia. Let’s talk in the light. Somewhere I can see you. Is there any way for me to come in?”  
“You don’t want to come in here.”  
The doe began to move back along the corridor. Aberforth felt as if it were encouraging him to follow.  
“I never saw your patronus.” he seemed cross with the darkness, “You kept too much secret.”  
Now he could barely see the form in the cell. He stepped closer to the bars.  
“I don’t want you to go thinking that this is over. It’s not over. I’m going to reopen the case and testify that you wanted to save Harry Potter. We think Potter can give some evidence of your alignment in the war.” Aberforth waited. “Rogers — you remember Rogers? We’re working together. He’s got evidence of your innocence in the Burbage case, for your appeal…”  
All his formality seemed to come away with the light, as if pretending was worse in the dark. When Aberforth spoke again, it had the muddiness of truth for the first time.  
“It’s too unfair what they did to you.” And he seemed to hold his body so he didn’t have to hold the next words:   
“What I did to you.”  
A sound at the end of the corridor startled him, and he hit his elbow against the bars as he turned to it.  
“Uncle.”  
Lucia’s voice was closer that he had expected, and lower.  
“How can you stand the darkness?” Aberforth looked into the space between bars, then back into the corridor.   
“It is not the darkness that hurts.” Lucia’s voice seemed to take the residual light with it. At the end of the corridor, the patronus still glowed, though with the enfeebled murmur of stars.  
“Aren’t you scared? Doesn’t this place frighten you?”  
“No.” the voice seemed to become more distant, and Aberforth thought perhaps Lucia had retreated further into her confines. She admitted a smile that would never be seen: “Though I can tell you are afraid.”  
“It’s because of this place.”  
“No, it is because of me.”  
For a moment, they were silent, though Aberforth's silence was restless. The doe returned down the corridor and, as it drew close to his elbow, he was able to see the outline of Lucia’s face but not what it was showing.  
“You know, Lucia, I searched for you. When you went to your father, I searched.” he tilted his head slightly, so as to see through the bars better.  
“Thank you. I know you did.”  
“I wish you hadn’t gone. How could you?”  
“You didn’t come here to ask me that, though I will answer if you wish.”  
It was an ashamed face that Aberforth showed the stones. “No, you’re right. I came… I wanted to know…” his hand went to the bars. “I wanted to apologise.”  
“You need not do so.”  
“No, I do. I do, Lucia. I do. I left you alone. I believed you were a monster.” His next inhale, wetted from his tears, echoed though the corridor.  
“I’m so sorry, Lucia. I’m so, so sorry.”  
His forearm went to his eyes, and he sobbed into his sleeve. There was a gentle sensation on his dangling hand as the doe rested its head against his fingers.  
“I forgive you.”  
“Don’t say that.” he lifted his hand away from the patronus. “Stop it. You’re supposed to be angry.”  
“I cannot be angry because I understand.”  
Aberforth’s hands came out of his hair and he looked at Lucia once again. There was no indication of weakness or sympathy on what he could see of her face: it was careful, brooding, enigmatic. Or maybe that was the darkness.  
“When I talk to you, it’s like I’m talking to a stranger. You grew up under my roof, eating the same food. Somehow, though, somehow, you’ve always been like a stranger. And yet…”  
“And yet you are here. I am grateful.”  
That abashed expression of Aberforth returned, only this time he showed it to the person he had intended.  
“We’re going to win this appeal. We’re going to get you out of here.”  
The darkness did the speaking. Aberforth tried to bat it into silence, “Don’t you believe we’re going to get you out of here?”  
“No.”  
And it shocked him, how none of his words had any tangibility — how a single ‘no’ from her weighed more than everything he had said so far.  
“You have to win. You have to win, We’ve got the evidence. It’s in the newspapers and everything. Even Harry Potter said—” The doe weaved itself around his legs then began back down the corridor one again. “Lucia…”  
“I will never forget that you came here today, Uncle. Thank you.”  
“No, wait.” Aberforth pressed himself against the bars and reached into the cell. “Lucia.” he cupped the darkness. “Lucia, where are you?”  
“Here.”  
And in the fading light, Aberforth realised that she was only inches away from his hand. He angled his fingers toward her and touched her shoulder with a clumsier movement that he had intended. There was gentle laughter from the cell, though its timidity was agonising. His other hand reached toward her too.  
“Lucia, give me your hand.”  
“I do not want to frighten you.”  
“I’m not frightened.”  
He felt Lucia take his fingertips with almost childish delicacy. The hands that for so long had been the hands of a monster were smaller and more fragile than his own.


	41. Chapter 41

It was an unpeopled beach. The only life was at sea, in fishing boats and in their nets. He squinted at them as he passed along the cliff. The wind felt strange against his neck and the shortness of his hair was still uncomfortable. For the first time in his life, he pushed it away from his eyes. At his feet, the grass made sheet music as it bent toward the sea. He still had not decided what he would say to her when he saw her, though he had lived through countless conversations of his own invention. Perhaps about her time in Azkaban, and the appeal that had acquitted her; or perhaps about her marriage to the man who had campaigned for her freedom. He wanted first to congratulate her on her marriage, and he had done so successfully in his mind many times: it was precisely the difficulty of such a thing that meant it had to come first. But it might be impossible for him; in the event that he would be unable to give his congratulations, at least he would thank her. Yes, he would thank her.  
He checked that all his buttons were done up, then looked out at the ocean once more. His step became slower and slower, until he was barely moving at all. Seagulls passed him, flying in the opposite direction. His whole body turned with them and his cloak moved out in emulation of their wingspan. When he turned back around, he saw a figure standing at the cliff edge. It was a muggle dress that rose up through her legs and over the sea. Her skin, almost translucent in its paleness, had in places been antagonised to redness by the wind. As he neared, he became confusedly ashamed of his grey hair, his own skin, so much more sallow, and the limp in his right foot. He almost stopped. In truth, he had not expected her to be so lovely, her body so delicate, yet her stance so fierce. Her hands were holding the sides of her dress, neither lazily, nor with any real zealousness, so that the material could still take wing across the wind without leaving her completely. She did not turn around until he was within touching distance, and she did so with expectant grace. Only when she had observed him in his entirety did her face change. She took a step back, so close to the edge that he reached out for her.  
“You’ll fall.” he almost touched her forearms, yet something told him he must be delicate. A moment passed in which he tried to understand the expression in her eyes. Then she reached up and touched his chest, but with almost no pressure. Those hands lowered with her first tear, then rose with her watery inhale.  
“Professor.” her voice was quieter than he remembered it. “Professor.”  
His hands rose to press her own against his chest, but stopped without doing so. He tried to say her name, but it was too much for him to utter.  
“Are you okay, Professor? Is your body okay?”  
“Thanks to you.”  
“No, not thanks to me.” She ended the indecision by clasping his stagnant hands. “You’re cold.”  
“I feel it more than I used to.”  
“I see.” she held on to his left hand and turned with a movement that he could not help but find cruelly effortless. “I have a warming potion in the house. Let me take you.”  
“You will have to walk slowly.”  
He saw her shoulders become still. She turned to him.  
“I will go as slowly as you need.” She was blushing, and he realised with some shame that she had already intended to do so. In his palm, her hand tightened; it was cooler than his.  
“I forget how thoughtful you are.” he said, as the wind cobwebbed her hair against his shoulder.  
“Not thoughtful. I can hear it is all.”  
She was the first to begin walking. In the distance was the stony cacophony of the ocean, yet he did not look toward it once — his eyes remained on the upright back, the spiralling hair, the albatross neck of Lucia Black.  
“Thank you for my life, Lucia.”  
He did not see the way her eyes dropped.  
“It was a selfish act. I do not deserve your thanks.”  
“Selfish? Lucia, without you, I would be dead.” He couldn’t see enough of her face to determine what kind of smile she’d shown. He stopped, halting her also by a tug of his hand.  
“Lucia.”  
“Forgive me, but I thought I had done you an injustice.”  
“You thought…”  
“I thought you wanted to be with Lily.”  
Perhaps it was because he was looking directly at her that, for the first time, he discerned the darkness of Azkaban under her eyes. There was a tiredness to her, less explicit than his, but more corrosive; a shadow on her expression that could only have come from living in perpetual blackness for many years. A seagull passed them. This time, he initiated the walk.  
“You’re wrong.” he grimaced as the ground became uneven. “I’m glad you saved my life.”  
He felt her nod through the motion in her hand.  
They neared a cottage. Lucia unlatched the front gate without letting go of her professor’s hand, then stepped into the front garden and waited for Snape to close the gate behind him. She did not need to open the front door, for it opened by itself, though she did pick up the letters that were on the mat and place them on the mantlepiece. In the lounge there was a fire; windows that were bigger inside than they had been outside let in so much light that all the wooden surfaces had a sheen to them. Her home smelled of cinnamon, and there was a cauldron set up on her dining table with a number of textbooks open beside it. Snape went to the cauldron while Lucia went to the kitchen. There was the sound of china, and he smiled at the thought of such a capable mage making a beverage by hand.  
“I thought the potion would be more palatable in a coffee.” she came behind him and handed him the cup. “No sugar.”  
“You are too observant for your own good.” he followed her into the lounge, where she seated herself across from him, on the smaller sofa that was obviously less used.  
“Is something troubling you?” she had placed her tea on the side table.  
“I was just thinking it is very feminine in here.”  
There were only two syllables to her giggle, but they found a way to collide in his chest cavity.  
“I don’t know about that.”  
“Did you choose the curtains?”  
“They were my grandfather’s.”  
“I see… I thought maybe…”  
“Yes?”  
And as she looked at him, she seemed to give all of herself through her eyes in a way he had not seen since she was young. He couldn’t help but imagine this look given to someone else.  
“It cost you a lot to save my life.”  
He spoke it into the liquid of his coffee cup, where it seemed to swirl into a foam. As Lucia leaned forward, the light leaked over her folded legs.  
“Forgive me, but that is not true.”  
“You wanted to save your father, I heard.” In his peripheral vision, he could see her place her hands on her lap. “Is that true?”  
“Yes.” she nodded. “That is true. But more than anything I wanted to save you.”  
His reflection grew on the surface of the coffee as he further lowered his head.  
“If you hadn’t, you might not have gone to Azkaban.”  
“I had always been prepared for Azkaban.”  
He raised his face to her. In the way she sat, in the way she was watching him, was an almost frightening steadiness.  
“You should not have had to go to such a horrible place. You did not deserve it.”  
“No, I deserved it.”  
“How can you say such a thing?” When she did not respond to him, his voice shook: “How?”  
“Lots of reasons. I did many unforgivable things.”  
“Others, with greater crimes, with bigger regrets, never saw the inside of a cell, Lucia.” He placed the coffee cup down, perhaps for fear of spilling it, then used a tidal inhale to press himself against the chair. “It was too unfair to persecute you for your parentage. If I had been there — if I had been able — I would never have let you go to Azkaban.”  
It was a dandelion clock of a smile. Her face tilted slightly away from him, and when she resumed her posture, half of it was gone.  
“Thank you, Professor.”  
He brandished his hand with a gruffness that made him self-conscious enough to reach for his coffee and take a sip.  
“The doctors said that once you were released from Azkaban, you visited me daily.” he said it only after the fourth sip.  
“Of course.”  
Another sip. The coffee went back to the table. “But that you never entered my room.”  
“That is correct.”  
“Then you knew I was awake?” He raised his face to her.  
“Yes.”  
“Why didn’t you come to see me?”  
Conch shell colours swirled over her cheeks as her eyes fell. She made to speak, but he interrupted her.  
“Was it because of another?”  
“What? No, no.” her eyes rose to him once more and stayed on his own with such intensity that he became embarrassed. “I just… I thought you might not want to see me.”  
His fingers went to his unfamiliar hair as he dropped his face into his hand.  
“What on earth made you think that?”  
“I… I broke my promise…”  
“Which promise?”  
From his position in his palm, he did not see the shyness that passed over her face. When she spoke, her voice was more fragile than it had ever been:  
“That I would protect Harry Potter.”  
His tone was scalpelled: “What about the promise that you would love me always?”  
This time he looked up in time to see her expression.  
“Professor…”  
“Well?” He was aware that his voice was more severe, his expression sterner, than he wanted. She looked back at her lap and whispered something.  
“I can’t hear you, Lucia.”  
“I said I kept that one.”  
He brought his fingers under his sleeve, then ran his middle finger along the button. When he spoke, he could barely hear himself.  
“But you married.”  
Her face went to him, and he saw her shoulders rise and fall.  
“Where did you hear that?”  
“The man called Rogers, at your uncle’s. He said he was your husband.”  
“Ah.” The colour on her cheeks intensified, and she even laughed a little, “Ah I see. No, Professor, you are mistaken. I never married.” She came to the edge of the sofa. “You are the only man I have ever…”  
This time it was him that looked down at his knees. His hands were clamped over them, aged and veined. He heard her stir, but did not realise she had gotten up until she was knelt before him, looking up into his eyes.  
“Professor.”  
“Don’t look at me like that. I am an imbecile.”  
It was a single, almost silent laugh. She looked at his hands with a tenderness she had not shown for years.  
“May I touch you?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for reading until the end, for staying with Lucia and Snape throughout everything. I hope you enjoyed the story.  
> This fan fiction was written a couple of years ago. Right now, I'm thinking about what to write next; I'd be really interested to know if you have anything you would like to see.
> 
> Until next time!


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